Exploring Wine (through beer): Dogfish Head Brewery

Fermenting barley greeted our nostrils before we rounded the corner and saw the facilities of the Dogfish Head brewery. We happened to arrive just as new wart was being extracted after fermentation and dumped into a dump truck just outside the entrance to the tasting room. Later we would learn that the mash was going to local farmers as feed for their cows and that cows become greedy, excitable animals upon tasting the delicious mash and their mouths have been rumored to water as soon as they see the truck pull up. Their flesh, in turn, feeds hungry travelers at the Dogfish Head Brewpub on Rehoboth Beach. Making for one of many lovely sustainable little life and business cycles in greater area of Milton, Delaware provided by the brewery.

Dogfish Head is a craft beer brewery, founded in 1995 by Sam Calagione an English major who jumped the train headed to teacher land for a love of brewing. His knack for play on words and puns abound. For example, the machine used to continually add hops to their IPAs (a signature technique) is called Sir Hops A Lot. Being categorized as a craft brewery means Dogfish Head has a small production, less than six million barrels per year, it is owned by people, usually the beer maker, vs large companies like Anheuser-Busch. Because the people who live in the community make the beers locally, craft breweries tend to use sustainable growing methods and include lots of community outreach and programing. They also look at the past to revive flavorful historical brews and enjoy the challenge of improving on them.

The motto at Dogfish Head is “off-centered brews for off-centered people”. They are brewing beers for the sake of brewing beers, which don’t always appeal to mainstream tastes. Being a smaller production company, when we went on a tour of the beer making process, it was actually in the same facilities they make the beer in, along with actual brew masters deep in thought. I mention this because I’ve been on several brewery, winery, and distillery tours where the tour takes you through a simulated brewing process set up like a museum. All have been incredibly informative but it was neat to be so intimately exposed to the beer makers, facilities, and ingredients at Dogfish Head. It made me feel connected to what I tasted later.

The architecture of the interior reflected the cedar and metal of the exterior giving one the impression you were standing inside of a beer tank. It had a home-y, industrial feel if that makes any sense. The smell of cedar, kegs, old beer, new beer, raw barley, yeast, and fresh water filled every space inside. Bright sunshine poured through the floor to ceiling glass walls of the tasting room and on to the faces of beer nerds of all ages and origins - over 10 different license plates spotted in the parking lot.

After the tour we tasted four beers. The descriptions of each beer were similar to the language I’m used to seeing on wine descriptions like, “notes of lemongrass, orange peel, or coffee”. Just like a sommelier, the notes listed food-pairing recommendations and even a wine they felt the beer compared to in terms of mouth feel, weight, and sometimes flavor. Very useful indeed.

When I’m not in the mood for a glass of wine (gasp) or I need a little carbonation, my favorite thing to do is to go to a beer place and order a sampler. I tend to be indecisive when ordering beer because there are so many great, small production regional varieties. Its hard for me to commit to a whole pint when I want to try everything. Usually with a sampler I can try 4 or 5 beers at once (hooray!). During our visit to Dogfish Head and later at their brewpub in Rehoboth Beach, I had the opportunity to sample over 10 of their beers (and was somehow still standing). Here are some of my favorites from the day with wine comparisons.

Namaste was the first brew we tried upon arriving for our tour. It is a Belgian-style white beer that was compared to a Gerwurztraminer from Alsace - meaning bright, crisp, with floral notes, and refreshing on a hot summer’s day. Namaste was made with dried orange slices (not just the rind), lemongrass and coriander so it had less floral notes than its listed wine comparison and made me think of a Sauvignon Blanc. It was perfectly light and a great place to start our beer tasting journey.

Chateau Jiahu shows off what Dogfish Head is all about. The story behind this one is that they worked with molecular archaeologist Dr. Patrick McGovern to recreate an ancient Chinese recipe for beer. This recipe dates back to 9,000 years ago from the village of Jiahu in China. The flavor was highly distinctive and definitely not for everyone. Muscat grape juice (a type of wine grape) is added to the barley malt along with orange blossom honey and fruit then fermented for a month with sake yeast. (Dogfish Head uses many different strands of yeast for their selection of beers.) It basically tastes like a Muscat wine (very sweet) mixed with a citrus-y beer. Another interesting historical beer we tried was Midas Touch.

As noted above in the Chateau Jiahu, Dogfish Head experiments with adding wine grapes to their beers. The most successful, in my opinion, is Sixty-One. It is basically their famous 60-minute IPA with a touch of Syrah grapes thrown in. It was my sixth tasting of the day and I remember feeling pleasantly surprised by its balanced flavor and rounded mouth feel. The touch of Syrah took the bitterness out of the IPA.

My over all favorite was the Raison D’Etre, which unlike some of the others were tried is available year-round and at most of their retailers – good news for me! It boils down to Belgian brown ale plus raisons added to the fermentation process. This is comparable to Bordeaux red wine and pairs perfectly with a steak dinner, which was the point of its creation. It tastes kind of fancy but not overly messed with.

Perhaps with all this new knowledge, next time Gman takes me to a pub I’ll be able to make a more decisive choice when selecting a pint. In the meantime, I leave you with this.

Video Games and Beer part 2

Battledfield is a military game series, played in the first person. It has two gaming options: story mode which you play a heroic soldier in a challenging military adventure, and multi-player mode which you play live with other gamers in order to play “realistic” battle scenarios on teams.

People who play multi-player military games are loyal to one of two camps: Battlefield or Modern Warfare. They have similar goals, kill the most amount of times, and be killed the least amount of times, but the game playing experience on each is much different. Gman is loyal to the Battlefield camp. In Battlefield, the boards are larger and you can interact with your surroundings. If, for instance, an opponent is hiding in a building and shooting at you, you can blow up the wall they are hiding behind and kill them. The wall is then gone for the rest of that gaming session. (People can’t just sit in a cardboard box and snipe the whole time; which is pretty much the most annoying thing someone can do in multi-player games.) Both Gman and I like this aspect of the game, as it changes your strategy as you play. 

You can use the vehicles placed around the boards, too. Jump in a tank, run over trees, plants, other cars, drive through buildings, and even shoot anti-aircraft guns at helicopters being flown by other players. Drive around with wreck-less abandon, or you can take a four-wheel motorcycle, put multiple sticks of C-4 on it, then ghost ride it into whatever you want – players, tanks, walls. By the sounds of his snickers, Gman is most entertained by this.

The key aspect of the game is whom you are playing with. It’s important to find a good team and develop a strategy, versus just mindlessly shooting at everything. As an observer, this is also better for me. Normally, I can’t hear the game, as Gman wears a headset (best Christmas present EVER), but if things aren’t going well (usually a result of a bad team) then my quiet evening of trolling the internet reading is disrupted by strings of loud profanities.

The first person military games are very patriotic and they are the epitome of the type-A American male; oozing with testosterone and bringing out one’s competitive side. Many stereotypes of soldiers come to mind when I think about the soldiers in this game; perhaps these young men also like hunting, fishing, and Nascar.

So what would a small town private driving a tank, and blowing up buildings, reach for during a lull in combat? It would have to be something ubiquitously American, something easy to drink, and something cheap…

We paired Battlefield with Busch. One can grab a six-pack of Busch beer for under $5 and it is a product of the USA made in St. Louis, Missouri. Some would argue that this pilsner has no taste or that those who drink have no taste. But Gman and I would beg to differ. After a long, hot day, of manual labor you reach for something light and refreshing, and a pilsner is perfect, it’s like drinking water. Plus, as our liquor store attendant put it as were checking out with our six-pack, “you won’t have to worry about anyone stealing your beer.”

What beer would you or do you pair Battlefield with? Please leave your pairing in the comments below.

Battlefield images via Amazon

Busch image via Busch Beer

Video Games and Beer

A few weeks ago, during a night out at a bar (where the best ideas are discussed) a few of my guy friends requested a new series on the blog, as they are not in to reading about shoes but want to support me none-the-less. They requested beer and video game pairings, in response to my new series pairing art and wine on Meg Biram’s blog (you can read the first two posts here and here).

Gman is an avid gamer and I actually like watching him play. I appreciate the creativity and artistic attention to detail that goes into each story. By playing the game, you transported through time and space for a quick reprise from your everyday life.

I will be posting a new pairing every Saturday in December. Each game featured in this series will be one that both Gman and I have experienced. The reviews will be from Gman’s perspective as the gamer and mine as the observer. And, after much debate, each of the pairings will be based on what the gamer would drink to set the mood. Sometimes I will pair a beer with the character in the game but for all intents and purposes, the gamer is the character. Let’s be honest, that’s the point, isn’t it?

Our first pairing is Dead Space with Negra Modelo. 

Dead Space is a game played on Xbox 360 and PlayStation that basically takes you inside the movie Alien. Played from the first person perspective, you and your crew are summoned to repair a mining ship where everyone seems to be missing. You, Issac, are very much alone with no escape, and sometimes no gravity. The scenes on the ship are creepy, and frightening at times, as aliens attack out of nowhere and you hear them breathing just around the corner. Once confronted by an alien you mutilate them to death using nifty futuristic weapons, blood and guts spewing everywhere. This is something men find wildly entertaining.

The storyline is somewhat predictable, however still horrifying as you learn how each of the crew met their demise. It is interesting to watch, although I didn’t find myself caring for the characters like I do in other games.

Gman says playing this game reminds him of Doom. There is limited amo and health, so you can’t just go around with your finger on the trigger. Alone, you don’t know what will happen next so have to have a strategy to conserve your resources.

We choose Negra Modelo to pair with Dead Space. It has a dark slightly mysterious quality to it in addition to a smooth, malty taste. As dark beers can be perceived as filling we thought, if things don’t go too well for you on this ship in the middle of outer space, this might be your last drink. It might as well be your last meal, too.

PS – Have you played this game? What beer would you pair with? Let us know in the comments below!

Dead Space images via Amazon.com
Negra Modelo image via Crown Imports, LLC