Sam C. was one of the first very visible exponents of flamboyant and wildly experimental brewing. He had a TV show for a short time, showing the excitement and pitfalls of cutting edge brewing. I seem to remember an effort to brew a Peruvian (?) style beer that involved masticating (chewing) corn (I think), spitting it out, and somehow incorporating that into the wort. The recreations of ancient recipes were often delicious, always interesting. There was also a New Yorker article on Sam (20+ years ago I think) which gave some idea of this kind of way-out brewing. Today all of this seems old hat, and thus Sam's charisma (and DFH's) has gone into decline. Cutting edge is only cutting edge for so long. With this said, many of his recipes remain outstanding. I remember staying in Baltimore for a while 10 or so years ago and having dinner a number of times in a bar near the Hopkins campus. I'd always have a 60 Minute IPA on tap with the meal. One fine day (or evening) the bartender informed me that 60 Minute was no longer available--something about the difficulty of drawing it from the barrel, or whatever. An IPA from a well-known Philadelphia brewer (still in business today) had replaced it. He asked me how the new IPA was. Good, I lied, and finished my dinner. The 60 Minute was just a much better beer.
I'm certainly not as excited about DFH beers as I was 10-12 years ago. 60 is still a solid, if not terribly impressive IPA. 90 is still exceptional IMHO. It's hard to find really good malt-assertive IPAs these days, so I'd say 90 is the best thing they still brew. If they are still "off-centered" it is in a way that is not impressive to me. Beers such as Olde School, Palo Santo, Indian Brown, My Antonia, Burton Baton (and several more that I can't remember off the top pf my head) made DFH the kind of off-centered brewery that appealed to me. All of the beers that I named above are gone or, if not gone, unavailable to me. The beers that I see today with DFH labels are more pedestrian.
Total Wine had some 60 Minute bottles recently and a good date. They were very good. Next six pack was cans and they weren't as good.?? Next six pack is pretty good in cans. The bottles seemed fresher? 90 Minute was available a lot and 120 Minute finally got popular here. I aged a couple of 120's and they were pours after 2 years. Dogfish Head was instrumental in my pursuit of IPA Hophead Happiness. Is this the IPA Appreciation Thread? @RaulMondesi
While I rarely drink their distributed beer anymore (though I did pick up the latest variety pack to try Colderest), as others have mentioned, the Milton brewery and Rehoboth brewpub have great line-ups of "exclusives" that show you Dogfish still has it. From crazy experimental beers that (usually) work to perfectly executed classic styles, I always enjoy having a pint at either place. They were also nailing it with a bottled, barrel-aged sour series called "Wooden it be Nice". Unfortunately, that got cut not too long after the Sam Adams merger.
What did you think of this beer? Did you think it was good enough to justify purchasing the variety pack? Cheers!
Dogfish Head had me for a while because they did make some truly different, and exceptional beers. I have not seen those that I was most interested in around lately and, given that their pricing was always a bit in crazyland, and I can find some spectacular Belgians for the same money, I'm gonna go that route.
Not really. I was at what I think might be the original brewery in Rehoboth years ago. But never sought it out. Just an occasional purchase for me. Saw some 120 on the shelf yesterday but passed.
They have both a BB date as well as a packaged date (at least on the bottle of 90 minute I was looking at earlier today). First line was the BB date and the 2nd line had a packaged Julian date (something like D 011 4 for 11th Jan 2024. I think the BB date was June for the same bottle fwiw).
Gosh, I can’t remember the last time I sought out a DFH brew. That said, I was so jealous of some family members who visited the brewpub while traveling not so long ago.
Yeah, Ringwood gets a bad reputation from the boom of brewpubs in the 90s, but in the right hands, it can produce great beers. It was a strain that meant for a quick turnaround on British style ales on a certain system of "cheap" fermenters. Otherwise, it wouldn't have become as prevalent. The problem was that there were a lot of small breweries in the 90s/00s that didn't put the care in for that particular strain like they should have, and turned out crap beers. DFH was juggling 8 strains at their height of innovation, and the "ringworm" problems like other breweries were having wasn't a complaint. Find a fermentation fault in 60 or 90min and then get back to me about the Ringwood strain.
Yea - I may not be able to find you any fermentation faults - it’s the flavor that’s the problem/fault. For me - 60/90 Minute always had that same flavor tick as most of the copper colored ales at the NE brewpubs I was frequenting in the 90’s/00’s. Gearys, Long Trail, Grittys, Martha’s Exchange - the list is long - and only a few of those places survive - and they aren’t using ringworm anymore - “the scourge of Allen Pugsley” lol. Not sure about yeast management between the brewpubs and DFH - but that flavor was preset in both. Like cilantro - I’m sure some people like it - but I’m not one - and I can’t help but think the yeast and its distinctive flavor must have something to do w the demise of the Minute line up.
I may have missed the aspect of pricing in a prior post but I think you are the first to bring this up. One thing I was not a fan of when it came to Dogfish Head in the past was they were indeed priced higher than other competing breweries and I often would buy the other breweries beers instead for this reason. I have no idea if this price differential situation is the same today (e.g., post the BBC buyout). Cheers!
Caligione was one of the big craft boosters who believed in higher prices and was "...against commodification and homogenization of craft beer.” See Brewbound's pre-sell out article: Dogfish Head Unveils New Variety Pack; Founder Calls Commodity Craft a ‘Slippery Slope’ Things changed a bit after selling to BBC: https://www.goodbeerhunting.com/sig...ps-hamper-dogfish-heads-summer-marketing-push
I apparently missed the part: "The issue with DFH in my area is that they are still pricey in comparison to better options." That was most certainly the situation prior to the BBC buyout but allegedly this has changed post the BBC buyout according to the article linked in post #116. Cheers!
