Dogfish Head "In Your Mace"

They're ridiculous because they didn't put pepper spray in the beer???

 

" they aren't doing anything differently now than they were ten or more years ago"

If you don't see the difference between continuously hopping a beer for 60,90, or 120 minutes and adding pure chile oil to a beer than I think your perception of what their changing innovations are is slightly flawed.

 

Other brewers have added chili oils to beer. There's a whole category here on this site of herbed/spiced beer in which a fair number are listed. For example Flying Dog did a whole series of chili spiced beers. That database also includes a DFH beer from several years ago.

What real difference is there between using extract and doing the extraction yourself during the brewing? Some of the most highly rated beers on this site use hop extract as an ingredient.

Edit: Isn't adding vanilla extract to certain recipes a standard culinary procedure???

 

I love 60 minute and WWS and they are still some of my favorite beers but I agree with @EvenMoreJesus that this brewery's new beers are too gimmicky. Every beer they make isn't normal and I get that statement is there MO but there is a difference between being imaginative and tossing in chile oil in a beer. Saison Du BUff has rosemary and they use food spices on what seems to be every beer. It's all not good to my palate beyond one beer.
WWS is ridiculously high abv for the time it came out. No other breweries were continuously hopping beer for 60 minutes prior to DFH. I can even get down with a Midas Touch. These are cool beers that I would like to see a lot more of from DFH. Being clever and cool without it being extremely gimmicky is what made them famous and they should go back to that.

 

Hmm, so using chicory in a stout wasn't new or gimmicky?

Doing Midas Touch as a recreation based on archaeological evidence provided by a widely known archaeologist who specialises in ancient alcoholic beverages wasn't new and gimmicky in it's day?

When it was first released the Palo Santo beer was regarded to be new and gimmicky by many on this site. It wasn't really a brown ale, etc. etc.

I'd suggest that just because some of their earlier "new gimmicky" stuff has worked well for you doesn't mean that in their early days they were not doing things considered to be new and gimmicky by some. Even that continuous hopping has been said to be "new and gimmicky." Even within the last few years I've seen some claiming continuous hopping was a gimmick.

All I'm suggesting is we can't draw a fixed line between when they were doing "new and gimmicky things" and when they were not. Even the beers you like were once considered "gimmicky."

 

I understand that inspiration is where you find it, and that great things can come from odd connections...

but this approach to beer making really turns me off anyway... and I'm not specifically talking about the chili oil, believe it or not, I'm talking more about the mace spice.

A brewery owner is a high school buddy of someone who works for Mace Security, and this connection not only leads to making a beer inspired by pepper spray, but also leads to adding mace spice to the mix... because... well, for no initial reason except that it's a pun. If mace spice was called kace spice, it wouldn't be in this beer. Drives me nuts. How about adding an ingredient because you formulated a recipe inspired by flavor contributions rather than where your friend works and a play on words?

"Honey, this hamburger tastes weird, what's in it?"
"I was feeling inspired, so I put ham and bulgur in it. Get it? It's a play on words."

Would I try a sample of this beer if offered to me? Of course. I'm my own worst enemy.

 

Relevant or not I still enjoy DFH beers. Odd ones or non odd. I started drinking 60 minute a million years ago and just in January revisited that beer at a party. Wow....it's still good.

I tried to get all the ancient ales and try to taste all the new beers. I miss a lot of recent ones due to price and not seeing them in mix a six.

Still think Burton Baton is a great beer and will continue to support Sam when I can.

Enjoy

 

GOT TO TRY IT!

 

Ridiculous on many levels. Firstly that they're "teaming up" with non-beer-related entities make beer just to market their product. Secondly, that they're obviously grasping at straws with this "collaboration". What's next? "New from Dogfish Head . . . GEICO green gecko ale. There's no gecko in this beer, but it IS green and they DID pay us a lot of money to "collaborate" with us, so everybody's happy, right?" Just make great beer, Sam. This bullshit needs to stop. And that gets me to thirdly. This type of thing makes craft beer look bad. As bad as sexist, misogynist names and labels for beer? Probably not. But it does show a blatant disregard for their consumers. I can only imagine the conversation that resulted in the beer:

Sam C.: Just heard from Mace that they responded to our request for collaborations.

DFH guy 1: How are we going to do that?

Sam C.: Aww . . . we'll just add some chili powder and mace spice to it or something.

DFH guy 2: How does that have anything do do with the company Mace, that makes personal security products?

Sam C.: They make pepper spray and this beer will have peppers in it . . . PLUS the mace spice. I think that it's a great fit.

DFH guy 1: OK. Sounds good.

DFH guy 2: Just walks away shaking his head and mumbling "I really wish he was kidding."

 

I think that their "Ancient Ales" series is pretty cool. Most of them are at least relevant to beer and interesting from an academic standpoint, if not just solid beers.

Great story behind this beer as it was, basically, an attempt to use a very interesting ingredient.

Of course it was, but at least that gimmick produced good, solid beers.

Although there certainly is a gray area, continuous hopping is worlds away from a Mace beer. And to add insult to injury, naming the beer just so the company that you're "collaborating" with gets their name on the label. Ridiculous.

 

This sub-subthread began because you said they put pepper spray in the beer, which they did not. So I'll just drop it at this point.

 

Seems pretty clear that there's no point in continuing beyond this set of comments.

 

Never said that. The quote about pepper spray was in regards to someone saying that some sausage has mace spice in it.

 

This discussion really has you miffed. What's up with that, man? Usually you're pretty even-tempered.

 

Pretty simple really.

As I expressed above, I've been around here for 10 years or so and over the time I have seen/heard DFH knocked for being gimmicky, etc.,etc.,etc. for their use of unusual ingredients and using culinary techniques such as continuous hopping. Some of their beers I've enjoyed some I'd not repeat even if they brewed them again.

However, your comments (e.g., your hypothetical dialog) and those of others are indistinguishable from those I was hearing 10 years ago, you and others in this thread folks are just putting the cut off line in different places (e.g., you think continuous hopping and Midas touch are fine when other equally vocal people have said they are gimmicks). So even some of the things you now appreciate about/from them were or still are widely regarded as gimmicks by others at one time. The process of creating innovations that stick around and become seen as valuable involves guided trial and error, making lots of mistakes and keeping the stuff that works.

As I said way back up thread, I'm a DFH realist and I also have some very strong reasons not involving DFH, to say they aren't doing anything they haven't done before and that they make public some of the sources of their guided exploration whether it works and sticks around or not.

 

You do realize, however, that what was once well-incorporated novelty has now transitioned to almost pure novelty, or do you not see that?

 

No I don't see that since my point all along has been that the Brewers at DFH are doing exactly here and now what they have always done at DFH. Exploring things that interest them, for what ever reason. Some for apparently sillier reasons, e.g., their incredibly expensive experiment brewing with cloudberries which was never repeated. (Most folks back then wouldn't have been willing to pay $20 for a 10-12 oz serving, even knowing they were paying at cost.)

At the time of their first use or introduction such things as continuous hopping, the use of peat smoked malt and maple syrup in brewing, etc. etc. were not considered by many to be well-incorporated novelty and were seen as smoke and mirrors or novelty for the sake of novelty. Some of the things they tried back then have stuck. Others have gone away. This guided trial and error to see how well an idea works is the way of successful innovation and unsuccessful innovation, many of which we never hear about.

In the particular case in this thread, the use of chili oils in beer isn't new to DFH or brewing in general. The use of mace may be new but is a quite natural thing to think of trying if one has experiences brewing with nutmeg as does DFH and many other breweries. The only thing that's really new is how the idea to create and try the recipe is a chat between friends.

So as I said earlier, time to move on.

 

Agreed.

 

The chili oils they are referring to is oleoresin capsicum. OC is the active ingredient in pepper spray. Mace is simply a brand of pepper spray as well as others like Sabre Red. So did they put Mace in the beer, not exactly but they used the active ingredient in all pepper sprays. I’ve been sprayed by it for work, it’s sucks but I would like to try this beer.