A Dogfish Halloween

Evening all!

So many pumpkin beers to drink, so much time to drink it in! We've done 3 so far and while some are good beers, they're not what I would consider the penultimate pumpkin beer still. Our quest won't be stopped by a Fall mediocrity, we will press on! And with that, I introduce Dogfish Punkin Ale as our next tasting.

Being in Dogfish territory, I got pretty excited when I saw this on the shelf. Dogfish is known for it's high quality, consistent good beers. They're also known for going way out of bounds in the brewing department, coming up with modern day recipes to ancient brew or mixing the craziest flavors together to see what happens. The beer is so easy to recognize on your local liquor store shelf thanks to they're great and solid branding. What's behind the label?

That color is unexpected, right? No your eyes or my camera are not deceiving you. That beer has a distinguishable redness to it's ale. A dark amber beer with a ruby glint. It has a small beer head but brought quite a lot of carbonation to the table.

On taste, this is a 'spicy' beer. Allspice and nutmeg pack a powerful bunch in this beer. The brown sugar practically sticks to the glass. It even has the slightest hint of a mead-like sweetness. I let this beer sit a little while and was surprised how much the beer softened up and became a much lighter and balanced sweet beer than when it was first popped open. What about the pumpkin? On initial tasting, the nutmeg and allspice overpowered it completely. However, after letting it sit, the spices mellowed and among the brown sugar sat a medium-body pumpkin flavor. I'm not totally convinced this was successful as a PUMPKIN beer. It was definitely successful as a fall beer, and I'll definitely buy this before the season is over. I toast Dogfish to a UK PINTRS rating.

Pangaea: Not Just Any Super Continent

Hey Gang!

Wow it's been awhile since our last post but we're back in a serious way! Moving to a new place sure takes some time to get everything set up but now that we're in good shape we've got our own home brews on the way. That's right, in conjunction with Good Brew Hunting I'll be starting my home brews under the Rayje Brewing name but with the same bulls-eye Good Brew Hunting logo. Once our first batch, the .38 Amber, is ready to drink we'll be doing tastings from both room temperature and cold conditioned bottles over several months to gauge the flavor. I hope to be as hard on myself as I am on other beers as I expect the same level of flavor from myself as other craft breweries (obviously on a smaller and INITIALLY less sophisticated level). Stay tuned!

What better way to get back in to the beer tasting spirit than to go out on a cultural limb with Dogfish Head's Pangaea! We've reviewed Midas Touch awhile ago and while I wasn't the biggest fan of the beer, I applauded Dogfish Head  for their bravery as conjurers of beer recipes. Pangaea is one of their unique "Occasional Rarities" and the ingredients are quite varied. A dash of flavors from the 7 continents (Antarctic water, Australian crystallized ginger, Asian basmati rice, African muscavado sugar, South American quinoa, European yeast, and North American maize) were enough to peak my interest and give it a shot.

The color (a yellow gold with hint of amber), carbonation (tiny bubbles instead of any head) and smell (there's more than a hint of wine in her) made me ask myself if I poured a chardonnay. The bottle recommends a snifter or wine glass but I have those rad martini glasses and I think it gives it the appropriate breathing room. Can't wait to find out what's beneath this complicated continent.

Wow...So lets roll back to my review of Midas Touch. I recall saying it was a wine trying to wear beer clothing. This time, we have the opposite problem/flavor combinations.  This is a beer dressed as a wine. Everything going in to this beer told me to expect a heavy wine flavor. Not the case. At the start there is the tiniest of wine influence what I would attribute to the fusion of ginger in to the other six ingredients. From there we enter into a wit bier (European yeast and quinoa are most likely the culprits here). Maybe that Antarctic water is who I can thank for the refreshing beginning and end to the beer. Oh, and somehow that wine influence returns at the end, waiting behind a corner to pop out and surprise me before it completely left my palate.

Surprisingly refreshing, incredibly complex yet simple and elegance. The bottle intimidates like a Beethoven symphony but you're romanticized by Stravinsky violin elegance. I can't imagine a more perfect harmony of several ingredients to complete a unique beer from beginning to end. I was expecting originality but not perfection from Dogfish Head in this beer but, for what it is, that's what they've given me. I'm only too happy to reward Pangaea with a Scottish PINTRS score. Till next time!

120 Pulls a 1080

We've talked about Dogfish Head brewery before.  They've been able to establish themselves as a US-wide high quality craft brewery that happens to have a few alehouses (where I highly recommend sitting down and grabbing a bite with your brew).  They have a few of what they call "Occasional Varieties" in their beer selection.  The one we're tasting today is the 120 Minute IPA.  I highly recommend checking out the Dogfish Head video regarding 120 Minute IPA.

The labels from Dogfish Head are well done and each of their selections stand out well against each other. There's still not much style to the outside of the bottle, but it speaks of an gentlemanly elegance.  Does what's in the bottle match up?

You'll see I poured in a pilsner-like glass, which I knew was not for this beer's ilk. But I like continuity and you can see the fullness of the beer when stood up within this glass. If a beer could pour like molasses this one would have.  There was a syrupy-thickness to the pour which was further emphasized by the overpowering aroma as the beer was poured out.  The smell of this IPA permeated throughout my bedroom with a pungent, malty alcohol wafer that's sure to intimidate.  On to the taste.

And what a first taste it was.  If we're talking about beers who can TKO just about any other beer, this is it. There's nothing really like this beer, and you can tell from it's strength just how much an impact being aged a whole month with whole-leaf hops has.  My palate felt like this was a beer that had nuzzled up with a warm whiskey barrel and comes out wanting to show the kinds of mountains beers can climb. Syrupy, sticky sweetness which sits in your mouth (and a slap of hardcore alcohol which warms the blood) on every taste.

After a few sips, I switched the glass.  My glass selection is somewhat lacking but this particular martini glass worked great as I was able to keep the beer at just the right cold temperature I wanted. My recommendation? Find this beer, buy it, and age it a little more too. I love this beer as an after dinner drink.  Drinking this in a nice snifter glass, 120 Minute IPA belongs rick with that high backed dark leather chair with an ABV that can light it's own pipe. Complicated brilliance in a bottle, this commands a Scottish PINTRS score.  Be warned, this beer will kick your ass and not feel bad about it.

Trust the Midas Touch?

Hey everyone!

And no, today's post hasn't turned this blog into an auto-mechanic forum.  Dogfish Head Brewery, one of the premier craft breweries around, also has one of the widest variety of craft beers.  One of these is Midas Touch.  The recipe for the brew is a Turkish recipe similar to one supposedly found in the tomb of King Midas himself (go ahead, check out the Wiki article for this ancient Greek mythology here).  Is this brew a royal flush, or more worthy to be flushed?

The bottle itself is pretty cool, and it stands out amongst the Dogfish line while keeping the trademark shark logo along the top of the bottle.   Dogfish describes the brew as balancing between mead and wine and as props to the website also suggests some tasting notes we should be looking for inside the bottle.  They include honey, saffron, papaya, melon, biscuity, and succulent (I question biscuity being a word but whatever).

It certainly pours light, and just looking at the picture above you can almost see that line Dogfish talked about as balancing between mead and wine.  It's a light golden color, and gives off the faintest, almost dainty sweet aroma of a flower.  So far, so good....

On the first sip I'm expecting some good ol' honey sweetness...and it's just not there!  This is one crossdresser of a beer.  It's a beer that wants to be a wine, or a wine that wants to be a beer.  I want to say its refreshing but, for me, it's almost slightly offensive to the palate.  It does have complicated flavors and distinct grape dryness with florals bordering close to what I'd expect to see in gin.  It maintains a particular dryness throughout, for better or worse.

If you can tell through this review, I wasn't a huge fan of it.  But I won't give this beer a bad rating just because I didn't like it.  It's notable for it's ingenuity and I can see how this beer will appeal to different kind of folk throughout.  As an aside, I also tasted this beer recently on tap and was more impressed by it flavors (yes I know, tap beer is tops anyway).  The beer deserves at least a Imperial PINTRS, for ingenuity but for also missing some of the mark when translated to the bottle.  Till next time!