Dogfish Head- Method to the madness

Dogfish head is my favorite brewery for the same exact reasons. I do not get the feeling they are brewing up crazy ingredients just to be weird and different. They are trying new and different things because they are number one very good at it, and two, they can. They are a staple brewery, other breweries would love to try different things and be adventurous, but quite frankly its a huge financial gamble. Rogue does to an extent try crazy concoctions but quit frankly Rogue is horrible at it.

 

Right on, I get that. Experimentation is wonderful but if it sucks and they know it, that's questionable. Of course, maybe everyone who works for DFH thinks they taste great, who knows.

 

I've said this in several threads and I'll say it again here. I like that they experiment. I dislike HOW they experiment. Simply put, I like my beer beer-flavored. I won't drink pumpkin beers, grape beers, or otherwise flavored beer. It's not my cup of tea. Rather than bringing in non-traditional ingredients, why not try to improve upon existing flavor profiles? How many pilsners out there have a strong tropical fruit-like hop profile? I can't think any. Do they even do a pale ale? I know they have an imperial pale ale (brewed with granola) but not pale ale to my knowledge.

 

“Begs the question why they couldn't acheive that without pear juice?” I am 100% confident that Dogfish Head could make a high quality Pilsner without pear juice but it seems to me that Dogfish Head truly like being “off centered” in their brewing approach.

“And would it get noticed/sell if it was just a straight up czech pils?” That is a very good question. The fact of the matter is that in general lagers are not very appealing to US craft beer drinkers. I believe there is an unconscious (or conscious?) association of lagers being something on the order of BMC type beers. It very well may be that the addition of pear to this beer might ‘inspire’ some beer drinkers to give this beer a try even though it is a lager (Czech Pilsner). From my perspective, if Piercing Pils opens some craft beer drinker’s eyes to the beauty of a well-made lager (Czech Pilsner) then this could be an overall benefit. The folks who enjoy drinking Piercing Pils may then seek out beers like Troegs Sunshine Pils, Stoudts Pils, Firestone Walker Pivo Pils and then maybe even some other lager styles like Shiner Bohemian Black Lager.

It’s all good!

Cheers!

 

Much like every thread on this site, there is a ton of dogma in here. Why is it so hard for people to wrap their heads around the fact that taste is 100% subjective?

Just because you don't like a beer, doesn't make it bad.
Just because you don't like a brewery, doesn't mean they suck.

 

I love Dogfish and the fact they do take risks with flavors.

 

Well put.

 

Beer paired with food.
That journey where beer is just one part of the experience.
There are well over 2000 American opportunists out there making beer with some name attached to it, so if one doesn't work. There's plenty of others. Some make their beer with beer in mind. Others make their beer with an experience with mind. That too me is kind of the cleave in a lot of the the DFH Sam's playground beers. Par them with something. Contrast, compliment, play. And drink, and enjoy.

 

It's a shame BAers doesn't like them....what are they going to do with that expansion they're working on!

I like a lot of their beers and should buy more than I do. I'm sad to see Chicory and Raison D'Etre go draft only next year but I am excited for Raison D'Extra to come back as I've never had it.

They do spend a lot of shelf space on those bombers though which when you're paying the same price for one of those as you would a six pack of 60 Minute I think a lot of those bombers gather dust.

 

Yeah, they were one of my favorite breweries at the start of my getting into the craft world, mostly because they produce so many beers, many of them intriguing, and easy to find. Now that I've tried so many more beers, I find them good but not great. Just had Bitches Brew for the first time and while it was good, there are dozens of other imperial stouts I would choose first. However, I do like Burton Baton and Indian Brown quite much.

There are plenty of breweries playing it safe and/or doing the same thing over and over again. Some one has to push the envelope and even if they fail, it perhaps opens the door for another brewery to try something they wouldn't have yet and they might be more successful.

 

That's a pretty key point. The success of DFH and their crazier stuff has definitely played a part in convincing distributors to carry stuff like it, and store owners to give it shelf space. They definitely deserve credit and appreciation for paving that roadway.

 

Lots of talk on here about DFH pusing the envelope and both positive and negative reactions to that. The problem with saying that someone is pushing the envelope is, as one observer pointed out in a different context, it is still the same old envelope.

For me what is admirable about DFH is that they spend a good amount of time (and gamble a lot of money and talent) on working to create new envelopes or recreate envelopes that may have disappeared hundreds or thousands of years ago. For example, while DFH are not the first brewery that has attempted to recreate or "reverse engineer" an ancient ale, they are the only one I know of who have a strong regular commitment to "experimental archaeology" through their partnership with a molecular archaeologist who can provide real data as to what the ingredients of ancient beverages actually were or might have been like. They don't just make that stuff up at random the way some people think. Rather they make a concerted attempt to use identified ingredients that can be documented as having been present in the beverage when it was made.

Similarly, rather than wonder what cloudberries might contribute to a beer they brewed up a batch and sold it to the customers at their brewpub. And the list goes on...

 

I if may be straight forward and tell you my emotional response, I believe that some may look down on the madness because it not how their personalities are or how they were raised. I know this is weird and people may say that I am thinking too much but it my mind I still believe it is prevalent. Some issues can have relevance inside of the beer world, and again some may not want to admit it. I could go deeper but I will leave it at that...

 

The pricing comments are kind of funny to me. If they aren't local to you, odds are they will be more expensive than your local brews! There are hundreds of bombers in Southern California going for 5-10 that I'd stock up immediately on if I could...

 

I can't remember the last time I've bought a DFH beer to be honest. The price of their beers in conjunction with the fact that they are ridiculously hit or miss doesn't do it for me (also the owner comes across as very condescending to anyone who critiques his beers). Like many it sounds like, they were the "sexy" craft beer that I first got into. I remember hunting all over to find some of their releases (often times to end up $15 out and a crap beer) but with the plethora of options now, the extreme quality coming out and the greater availability/distribution I think they need to become better. Being who they are has worked for them but how many of your local bottle shops are stocked to the brim with old bottles of DFH?

So aside from my personal boycott of them (mostly related to my experiences with the owner) I think they've lost being the "it" craft brewery due to the explosion and focusing on being different instead of being the best. Just my 2 cents.

 

What happened with Sam?

 

Jester King. Their concepts for beers are straight up madness.

This is the first really spot-on comment on the subject. I worked for the company for a few years and had the honor of being around Sam quite a few times. He is about as genuine and down-to-earth as someone with his kind of notoriety gets. He really does have the personality worthy of being a spokesperson for the industry. I feel like a lot of the flack Dogfish catches is mainly because they try to place the focus on the brand and the brand's concept just as much as, if not more than, the beer. This can be a good thing though because it gives the average non-beer-educated consumer something to latch onto and relate to. "Off-centered ales for off-centered people." Brilliant. Who can't identify with that? That's probably the key: identity. No matter who you are or what you're interested in, you can connect with the identity of Dogfish. And, to make sure they can make money off people who don't even like beer, they produce a shit ton of merchandise so that everyone can get a piece of the identity. The merch side of Dogfish can be its own separate business (I see they've come out with Piercing Pils lip balm...) and, in a lot of ways, it is. This is where I feel a lot of people start to lose respect. Some say it should be just about the beer and that the marketing should be secondary. Add to that the fact that they come up with some of the kookiest ingredients to put in their beer for seemingly no reason (moon rocks? really?), plus they make some of the strongest beers in the world, and everything starts to reek of gimmicks to draw attention, and therefore sales, rather than just making a quality beer that speaks for itself. There are plenty of times where I've felt this sentiment but, just as zid said, the fact that a lot of people can only name three breweries: Budweiser, Miller and Dogfish, is a monumental achievement. If it wasn't for Dogfish's experimental nature, justifiable or not, and unique attitude, many people would not have been exposed to the huge world of beer that's there for them to discover. I know I owe pretty much every bit of my initial beer experience to them even if it's only because I grew up in Delaware.

You're correct in your first statement but, as far as hipsters go, DFH markets to that demographic for sure. I saw more hipsters with stupid mustaches come through the brewery and brewpub than you could imagine. Hipsters look at Dogfish and go "They're different for the sake of being different just like me!" Add to that a slew of intricately drawn artistic ads and posters:

Plus the fact that Bonnie Prince Billy has played the brewpub before and starred in a Dogfish video advertisement, and you've got a recipe for magnetizing hipsters.

I agreed with your post up until that point. I actually think it's quite the opposite. "Noobs" will flock to an IPA, or any style of beer for that matter, with an ABV of 15% or higher because they love the idea of getting buzzed off of one 12 oz. beer even if it tastes gross to them. Also, like some others have already stated, just the unique concepts of some of the wackier beers will get anyone to try them at least once to see what it's like. Not only that, but how many people have already stated in this thread that 60 Min and other Dogfish beers were their gateway into craft? Not trying to bash your statement, it does make logical sense, just engaging in friendly debate.

You've just summed up the whole thing my friend.

I know, I know. tl;dr but my beer drinking roots are with DFH so I'm obviously very passionate about my hometown brewery (yes, I grew up in Milton) and have struggled to find merit in the newer products they've put out in the past three years. Someone said in a post earlier that Bitches Brew was the last thing they did that captured their interest...and I'm inclined to agree. Regardless, I'm going home for the holidays and will surely visit the brewery and brewpub to see some old familiar faces and try some new beers (I really hope American Beauty and Piercing Pils are good). Dogfish will never reach "boycott" status with me...I'd have to change my BA username if that were the case.

 

American Beauty and Piercing Pils are good. However to some, they aren't a sour, imperial stout or dipa so the "hype" isn't there.

FWIW, I had a black ipa/brown ale/light smoke thrown in mix at the brewpub last summer, and it was amazing. I really wish they would bottle it. Of course, I'm one of the few who like smoke beers.

http://www.dogfish.com/node/63441

 

Oh, and one last run-on sentence: if the same people that are posting about how Dogfish is so innovative and envelope-pushing and that makes them awesome or at least respectable are some of the same people who posted about how asinine and pointless the ideas the guys on the BrewDogs show came up with are, you're hypocrites.

 

I'm going to disagree with you. A lot, and I mean a lot of their beers don't work. I can see some reasoning behind adding the ingredients they do, but at the price point for their wacky brews you expect something A LOT better. I recently had their Robert Johnson's Hellhound On My Ale and I could see why they would add lemon peel to an IPA. Thing is the lemon made your mouth super acidic and gross. Not a very good beer, especially when it costs as much as it does.