A visit to Dogfish Head Brewery

General German — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:00:38 +0000

Guys:A visit to Dogfish Head Brewery was truly a “pilgrimage” of sorts. While Sergeant Stout paid a visit, I convinced him that it was worth a 150-mile journey. This had indeed been his largest brewery visit, while I had seen large operations such as Boston Beer, Brooklyn Brewery, and Red Hook, all of which were conducted by knowledgeable, approachable people. Dogfish was still perhaps the most unique: the brewery was as unique as the beer was, which I will tell you in a photojournalistic way. Observe, for example the tasting room/gift shop as you enter. It lacked the gift shop cheesefest you normally see–this was as expansive as the brewer’s imagination, where other gift shops are an afterthought. Moreover, it felt like a true brewery upon entry–make no mistake about it, they make 55,000 bbl annually, 362 days per year. The Operations The rest of the brewery tour was fantastic. Imagine seeing grain conveyors pulling barley from the next building, then placing it into an enormous elevator. The tour guide Jill was quite knowledgeable, having once worked at New Belgium Brewing in Ft. Collins, CO. Granted, with only 55 employees running the brewery, one has to imagine the many hats worn in a given day (her primary job is marketing coordination). We got to see so many outstanding pieces of equipment, including the famed 10-gallon SABCO system Sam Calagione started with, as well as the original Sir Hops-a-Lot. Afterwards, we went for a tasting of several of their quality off-centered ales, and were of course impressed with the imaginative quality going in to each batch. Cheers!

NEWS: A Small Taste of SuperIPA…Say it Ain’t So

General German — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 17:05:54 +0000

Guys: I am not sure what to make of this. I gave my IPA a taste just before bottling. It was both hoppy and reasonably bitter, almost to a point of harshness. Completely understandable–after all, this was a very young IPA.

Fast forward to last night. It’s been in the bottles for a week, and I began thinking about how the flavor is refining. My wife suggested I open one; after all, I have 50 left. Impatient as always, I quit brooding over the issue and stuck one in the fridge. A couple hours later, I opened it, and was delighted at the sound of gas escaping as I used my favorite wall-mounted bottle opener. It whispered to me, “Psst! I have bubbles!” as the cap came off. At least it carbonated, so I had surpassed the Sarge’s carbonation issue.

The good half of the story ends right about there.

The flavor moved from a bitter flavor to…indescribably bubbly-breadiness. The hops were barely detectable over the champagne-like bubbly texture and this odd bready flavor.

My brothers in brewing, I beg for both your help and intercessions (both holy and secular). Please help me answer these questions:

Am I worrying unnecessarily? It’s been six days for a beer which takes 4-6 weeks of bottle conditioning.
Could this entire batch of beer be bad? If the end of secondary fermentation (pre-bottling) tasted OK, presumably there would be enough alcohol in the brew at this point to kill off any other bacteria.
Could just this bottle be off? Should I try another at the expense of careening deeper into listless worry?
Why would the flavor change so much from the beginning of bottling to a week later? Have any of you experienced such a dramatic shift in flavor of a young brew?

Thanks for your help. Yours in Brewing,

Gen. German

Hall of Beers » Brewing

A visit to Dogfish Head Brewery

NEWS: A Small Taste of SuperIPA…Say it Ain’t So