Indian Brown Ale and 60 Minute IPA from Dogfish. While they make the excellent yet basic Shelter Pale Ale, Dogfish Head is one of the great micro-breweries of North American and well-known for innovations like the continually and highly hopped 120 and 90 Minute IPAs. Heck, for St. Patrick's Day this year they released a green draft beer coloured with a blue-green algae called Verdi Verdi Good. Clearly a brewery that thinks outside the general thunk.
Ken Wells in the recently reviewed Travels With Barley spends a chapter on brewer Sam Calagione and a visit to Dogfish's brewery and quoted a high-tech description of their hopping technique from Calagione:
"The first time we tried continual-hopping," he said, "was with the first batch of 60 Minutes IPA wthat I brewed back in 2000. I used one of those goofy circa 1978 electrified vibrating football games, canted at an angle and rigged with a five-gallon bucket of pelletized hops over our boil kettle. The hops would vibrate down the angeled football game and into the kettle in a single-file stream.The 60 Minute IPA pours a bright golden straw under a fine creamy white head, active with high carbonation. The aroma is like opening a packet of hops pellets. The brewery calls it their flagship and I see no reason to disagree. It is not a whallop over the head sort of IPA so much as an assertive but reasonable sort of fellow that has a point but will not bowl you over making it. In the mouth there is rich medium mouthfeel, some spice across the middle, a little heat as well as a good doorstop worth of crusty bread. I had an extended evening with this ale on tap last October and was the better for it...in every way. 6% and, in Ontario, at the LCBO for a short time this spring. BAers love it.
The brewery describes the Indian Brown Ale as follows:
A cross between a Scotch Ale, an I.P.A., and an American Brown, this beer is well-hopped and malty at the same time. It is brewed with Aromatic barley and caramelized brown sugar.The beer pours with a large waft of caramel crackle, like the stuff between the other stuff in peanut brittle. Mahogany ale under tan foam and lace. In the mouth the beer is very effervescent and full of dry fruit and sugars - fig, date, molasses, treacle. The hops are not just there to cut cloy but take full place, twiggy. The mouthfeel is somewhat chalky, while a bit like dry cocoa but not overly chocolatey. At 7.2%, also well loved by the nation of BAery. Not unlike Kasteel Brune come to think of it.
Comments
Julia - March 21, 2006 12:04 am
A good book on starting a business, and getting a good look at the creation of Dogfish Brewery is Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Entrepreneurship from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery.
It was a Christmas present from friends of mine and a pretty good read.
Alan - March 21, 2006 8:41 am
That particular book is definitely on my list.
Julia - March 21, 2006 8:54 am
Incidentally, where did you find your bottles of Dogfish? I haven't seen them in the stores around here, and I'm not that knowledgable about what places are served by certain distributors. I'm probably just looking for an excuse to go visit "rural" Delaware.
Alan - March 21, 2006 10:07 am
The 60 Minute IPA was in Oswego in Feb and the Indian Brown was in Ithaca in early December. I would think by now you must richly deserve a trip to either Premier Gourmet in Buffalo or Beers of the World in Rochester, Julia.
Chris - March 21, 2006 12:33 pm
Morning everyone! I just wanted to point out a great ratebeer.com feature to Julia and anyone else who's hunting for a certain beer. The distribution info page for each beer lists bars and stores where RB'er were able to get this beer recently; here's the page for the 60 minute IPA:
http://ratebeer.com/Ratings/beer/beer-Distribution.asp?BeerID=7431
You may have to sign up for a free ratebeer membership to view these pages, but if you love beer you should already be a member, right?
BTW, have you tried the FFH Pangaea [the brew with one ingredient from each continent]? I've had a couple bottles recently and just keep thinking to myself, "Is there anything they WON'T try?" The soft graininess and spicy hops blend amazingly with the ginger and other spices. Supposedly they even used water from Antarctica, which would help explain the $10/bottle price tag.
ALan - March 21, 2006 1:06 pm
That would be a great tool but I've signed up for a membership and that page tells me that there are question marks for every location. I am a little unclear on how results are to be read. How do I find out NY state shops where I can get this?<p>I have not had that world wide beer. The closest I have gotten to Antarctican brew is a Falklands beer bought 20 years ago in the UK.
Chris - March 21, 2006 1:46 pm
The little question marks next to each state are there in case you need to edit the distribution info or "question the validity of a location". The main thing to look at on these pages is the right sidebar where it say bottle shops in this area known to have this beer. Unfortunately it doesn't list the locations for each store on this page, but it has phone numbers which you should be able to deduce a location from, or you can click on the name of the store and bring up more details. I know they're working on a feature that will allow bottle shops to post current inventories; hopefully they'll finish it soon as it would be a great resource for folks like us.
Chris - March 21, 2006 1:52 pm
Beer advocate has a "want/got" list. It doesn't list "where" to actually get the beer, but it brings up a list of users who've "got" a particular brew. You can use this to figure out if a beer is available in your area and contact users directly and see where they got it, if you're so inclined.
Here's the "got" page for DFH 60min:
http://beeradvocate.com/beer/trade/6108/?show=G
Alan - March 21, 2006 1:56 pm
It would be nice if the list of shops was under each jurisdiction so that you could click on a state and find out what's in that state. I don't need to know what is in Texas.
<p>If you want to see an amazing beer finding system, check out the SAQ - the government booze merchants for the province of Quebec. They have live data on each bottle in each shop. Here is the beer list. Click on the word "outlet" to the right of each beer, pick your region of the province and up pops every outlet with that beer and exactly how many they have. <p>I drive once in a while through Quebec to Maritime Canada and it makes for great planning, especially at the larger shops in Levis and Riviere du Loup right off the highway.
Chris - March 21, 2006 2:12 pm
Wow. I guess having complete government control of alcohol sales can have at least one positive effect. The selection of belgian beer is a little lacking, but I suppose they are limited to the breweries that are large enough to supply the entire province.
Thanks for the tip!
Alan - March 21, 2006 2:25 pm
It would be great is someone could provide that same web widget and beer shops could sign up to provide real time inventory counts.
Joe - March 23, 2006 1:43 am
I asked Sam Calagione for a job once, probably in 2000 or so. I was at a beer festival in Philly, and he had a sign at his table "Brewer Wanted". I slept on it, and called him the next day, but he'd filled the job already. He would have been an interesting guy to work for. He seems brilliant, or at least persistent and motivated.
Chris: Visited Belmont Station in...oh, probably 1997-8. I'll watch your blog. Much like this one, though, it will make me homesick.
Chris - March 23, 2006 2:06 pm
Hey Joe!
(where you goin with that beer in your hand?) -sorry, couldn't resist channeling Jimi for a moment...
That would have been sweet to get a brewing job at DFH. After reading Sam's book and meeting him here in PDX last fall I'd bet he's an intense, probably difficult man to work for, but most brilliant people are. I give him tons of credit for pushing the brewing envelope, even when the experiments don't work they force other craft brewers to stand up and take notice...
BTW, Joe where are you at now? Perhaps we could work out a beer exchange. I'm always looking for new things from the midwest and east coast, and I'm sure I've got some things out here you'd be interested in...
Joe - March 23, 2006 9:10 pm
China. If I was still on the East coast, I'd jump at that opportunity. I shall return someday, however.
Alan - March 23, 2006 10:41 pm
Hey! What am I? Can't I get into beer swap club? Chris, baby...after all we've been through?
Chris - March 24, 2006 1:12 pm
Joe - In China eh...Is it true that pretty much all the beer has formaldaheyde in it? We just got a new brew in at the store called Macau that proudly proclaims to be free of formaldaheyde, which makes me wonder what the other breweries are putting in their beers. Let me know when you're back stateside and I may send you a good west coast "hop bomb" to recalibrate your tastebuds...
Alan - Hehe! Sorry, no offense intended, I'd be happy to arrange a swap some time. Especially if you can get "Peche Mortel" or any of the other limited batch brews from the Dieu du Ciel! brewery in Montreal. Take a look at our site some time and I'll peruse that cool stock finder for the provincial stores and we'll see if we can come to some sort of arrangement.
Hope everyone here has a good weekend!
Alan - March 24, 2006 2:01 pm
Excellent. My five-year plan is falling exactly into place.
Chris - March 24, 2006 3:51 pm
Haha! Dare I ask, a five year plan for what?
Alan - March 24, 2006 4:30 pm
Something along the lines of "I will no longer hunt for interesting beers - interesting beer will come to me."
Alan - April 28, 2006 10:48 pm
I am having one of the LCBO bottles just now. Rich bread crusty is perfectly accurate. It is worth the hops starved hype of the good weslakian Bar Towellers? Maybe, maybe not but their condition is reasonable given the circumstances.