Milton

Ever since I had my first 90 Minute it's been the beer I compare all other IPAs to. That doesn't mean 90 Minute is my favorite IPA, but I think it's one of the best brewed IPAs out there. I happen to like Hopslam a little better, but 90 Minute will never be a disappointment. 90 Minute has a great rich maltiness that really balances out the huge hop content. Then, along came Burton Baton. I'd only heard the name of this beer a few times before moving to Delaware, I'd certainly never tried it. From what I'm told, it's basically a oak aged 90 Minute with a bit more alcohol and lots of vanilla flavor. Awesome.

Like every other beer drinker who owned a television set in the Fall of 2010, I really wanted to try Bitches Brew. This was the inaugural beer of the Brewmasters show, brewed for Savor to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Miles Davis album of the same name. Living 10 hours from the nearest Dogfish distributor meant I completely missed out on this beer. I recently moved to Delaware and was able to find several bottles of Bitches Brew sitting on the self at the Dogfish Head brewery, so I brought a few home to commemorate my move to The First State.

I stumbled upon this bottle of Dogfish Head Red & White a couple weeks ago while visiting Colorado. I wasn't really seeking this beer out, and never thought I'd have an opportunity to try it. So, I really knew nothing about this beer going in to it... The label says this is an ale brewed with coriander, orange peel and Pinot Noir juice. Sounds interesting enough, like a Witbier with red wine grapes added. At 10% alcohol by volume, the Red & White will definitely be the strongest Witbier I've ever had and with the Pinot Noir juice & barrel aging, this has got to be the most complex as well.

Dogfish Head's 60 Minute IPA may be their best selling beer but I've always regarded 90 Minute as the beer that took them to the next level. 60 Minute is a solid beer and back when it was first brewed, it may have been revolutionary... but now, it's just another continuously hopped IPA. It's a good beer, which is why it sells in such huge quantities, but it's not what I'd call World Class. 90 Minute is a different story, it was more than just 1.5x the beer 60 Minute was.

I had a serious amount of trepidation about picking up a bottle of Dogfish Sah'tea. I've never had anything with Gin or juniper berries before that I've actually liked. I beer with juniper berries as a main ingredient is a tough sell for me. Sah'tea is also brewed with black chai, which is something I really like quite a lot, so I figured to take a gamble and buy a bottle. Actually, I bought two... you know, just in case. This wasn't the smartest bet I'd ever made but I was hoping maybe this would be the first juniper brewed beer that I'd actually enjoy.

This first time I had Raison D'Être was in Vegas. I've been to Vegas twice, the trips were a decade apart. After the end of the first day back in Vegas I thought to myself, "Alright, I've had enough of Vegas for another ten years..." There's something very temporary about Vegas, probably all the fake architecture or fake parties. I did my best to find decent craft beer on the strip but it was harder than you'd expect. The macro brew over-saturation was disappointing but not nearly as bad as Sin City Brewing. It says a lot about your craft brewery when you offer four styles and one is a Light... We finally found a couple quality beer places by the second day and the first decent beer I had in Vegas was Dogfish's Raison D'Être.

Dogfish Head makes a lot of interesting beers. Unfortunately, not a single one of their beers, interesting or otherwise, makes it to my neck of the woods. Dogfish Head Fort is a big beer that I'd only heard of in passing and certainly wasn't expecting to ever procure a bottle of it, but here we are... I picked up a couple bottles of Fort in Denver a few weeks back and decided to open one up this afternoon. Having known virtually nothing about this beer ahead of time, I didn't really plan ahead. All I knew is that this beer was brewed with raspberries, that's it... the bottle doesn't really give any other specifics. As I sat down with my glass of Fort I started doing the usual research and found out that this beer has a Belgian base at its heart and is considered the world's strongest fruit beer at 18% ...yup, 18% alcohol. I'm definitely surprised, but I'm not deterred...

I just got back from a birthday road trip to Denver with a pretty decent haul of beers that I can't get back home. It's been less than 18 hours, I'm good and rested so I figured I'd open up one of my new beers and take it for a spin. I settled on this bottle of Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron because I had a little taste of it on tap while in Denver and wanted to make sure it was really as good as I remembered. Hopefully, it is... because I brought three 4 packs back last night. Anyways, I sampled the Palo Santo at Falling Rock between other, lighter beers and really enjoyed its complexity and smoothness. There was a smooth je ne sais quoi to this beer that I chocked up to the Palo Santo wood. Now that I've got the Palo Santo all to myself, I'm eager to give it a formal review.

The Saison du Buff started as an idea kicked around by the heads of Dogfish Head, Victory and Stone Brewing Comanpies. Buff comes from their acronym for Brewers United for Freedom of Flavor, the name they gave their very unofficial gathering. The Saison du Buff was produced in three batches, one at Stone, one at Victory and this one which was brewed at Dogfish in Delaware. The Dogfish beer was released second, after Stone's version, and I'd love to review them all in order but none of these breweries distribute to my area... so I'll take what I can get, when I can get it.

I found a lone bottle of Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale in my basement today and figured it was about time I got around to reviewing it. I started off knowing practically nothing about this beer other than what was on the label. The name perplexed me a bit, what is an Indian Brown Ale? Everyone knows what an IPA is, so surely the India in this beer's name refers to the hop levels. The brown ale part of this beer I assumed was the base, much maltier than you'd get with a plain old IPA. Sounds interesting but I'm not entirely sold on the concept...