Thanks to Scott from Manland, who got me three bottles of Life & Limb.  They were flown in especially for me (now that's a hook-up).  At any rate, I could barely wait to try one of them, so I had it on Saturday (I got them Thursday) for an early lunch. As many of you know, DFH is one of my favorite breweries in the U.S.  Their unique approach to brewing and styles is enough to win over almost any beer drinker.  Also, they are a great story of being wildly successful from humble beginnings.  I have only the highest reverence for these guys.  Sierra Nevada is also a well known brewer, albeit less adventurous than Dogfish Head.  One thing they are a particularly well known for is their scrupulously clean and pristine brew-house.  Of course, they make good beer as well, lest we forget.  So, going into it, I thought, "This is going to be awesome."  Let's see if I'm correct. The Pour: When I poured this clean looking beer, it looked a lot like I was pouring Raison d'Etre.  The dark mahogany body shimmered and retained a very small amount of the off-white head.  So far so good, especially when ...

To be clear, the intent of "VS" in the title for this post is to indicate comparison, not competition.  After all, Dogfish Head is a favorite brewery of mine, and I enjoy just about all their brews...perhaps even the one made with spit, were I given the opportunity to try it.  Nonetheless, when two things, whether they be ideas, consumables, products, or people are scrutinized side by side, saying one is loftier than the other is natural, so yes, at the end of this post I will declare a better beer. In choosing these to beers as the Sip With Us Saturday brews, I really wanted to test my own taste buds in 2 ways:  1) How would they decipher the differences between the beers, and 2) How had my taste changed, since I have reviewd the 90 Minute IPA before (though I've also had the Burton Baton, I haven't reviewed it). For the sake of brevity, I am not going to go into the typical detail I prefer to in reviewing brews, but will highlight the important aspects of the beer.  Reader beware, unfortunately, due to feeling ill, these two brews were poured and consumed a night apart. The 90 Minute Pour: I ...

This Saturday we will be switching things up for our our world famous, Sip With Us Saturday.  Typically we pick a beer and then hope that all our readers purchase that beer and enjoy a remote sense of camaraderie in knowing that the same beer is being consumed by like minded individuals each Saturday.  This Saturday, while the beer kinship remains, we hope to bring a bit of a learning experience to the event by comparing the subtle nuances of similarity and difference between two similar beers made by the same brewer. Relying on one of our favorite brewers--Dogfish Head--we will first be drinking their popular (best IPA in America, Esquire magazine) 90 Minute IPA.  90 Minute IPA is an IPA that is continually hopped during a 90 minute boil, so that there is an unavoidable hop presence that doesn't feel like it's burning a hole in your esophagus.  This beer is also uniquely dry hopped:  please see the video at the end of this post. After drinking the 90 Minute IPA, we will be swishing our mouths out with water and pouring a Dogfish Head Burton Baton, which is a blend of the 90 Minute IPA and an oak age English ...

One of the early brews that we posted on the site was a DFH brew. I so cleverly named the title Gone Dogfishin' (man, that seems like ages ago). At any rate, the beer was Raison D' Etre, a French philosophical term that means reason for being. The Raison D' Extra is the extreme version of this beer, and it weighs in at 18-20% ABV depending on the year and who you are talking to. I've seen it classified as a Belgian Dark Strong Ale. One thing is for sure, it is a strong ale. A twelve ounce bottle will usually cost between $8-$10, but try to think about getting four beers worth when you buy it. Like most of DHF stuff, this beer is worth the money. The Pour: Head retention in this beer, which was a 2005 version that I drank, was very minimal. What head there was sat atop a deep, clean, crimson body that was slowly active on the carbonation. I could immediately tell that the beer was thick, so I gave it a swirl around the glass. Do you know any wine drinkers? Have you ...

Perhaps this beer was doomed to get bad reviews from the beginning. After all, Three Floyds and DFH are known for their bold, sometimes very hoppy and extreme brews. So, I think when most people heard that they were doing a collaboration, they assumed this would be a a huge beast of a beer--something that perhaps topped World Wide Stout, Dark Lord, or 120 min IPA. I assume that people were simply licking their chops about the prospect of such a match made in heaven. Like many craft brew lovers, I have tremendous respect for both of these breweries and expected what many others did. A big beer was all that crossed my mind. What people got, however, was a "normal"--i.e., not extreme--beer. I think that the knee-jerk reaction was to automatically drop the beer down to mediocre or only slightly above mediocre because of the unfulfilled expectations. I refuse to be part of that. I think that this German Brown Ale is a very good beer. Maybe the most ingenious thing about this marriage of DFH and Three Floyds is its restraint against extremism. The Pour: Popskull had some very nice brown ...

My wife and I forced ourselves to drink these two beers side by side and compared notes on what we thought. No, don't envy us; it's just part of the taxing responsibility that comes with the beer blog. We (Nate and I) have already reviewed several DFH products and Brooklyn's Monster Ale. First is Brooklyn's offering of Brown Ale: The Pour-Not too much to say here. The beer had a nice clean, brown body and little head retention. The Nose-Slight metallic aroma could be detected on the nose. Some citrusy hops cropped up, along with caramel, roasted grains, and coffee tones. I also detected a very faint touch of honey in the brew. Overall, the beer left a very nice impression. The Taste-The hops were very much in the background of the beer but could still be detected. The caramel and honey touches were evident, with caramel leading the way of the two. About the middle of any given taste, the grains and the coffee really started coming through. From the graininess, the beer ended in a semi-dry fashion. Mike's Rating [xrr rating =3.25/5.00 label="Overall Satisfaction:"] [xrr rating =3.50/5.00 label="Among other Brown Ales:"][xrr rating =3.00/5.00 label="Among other Ales:"] Dogfish ...

Talk about a beast of a beer. This sucker weighs in at a whopping 18% ABV. There is little doubt that it is stout in every way and that drinking two bottles in a short span of time would mess your world up. We've reviewed multiple Dogfish Head beers, and I am personally a very big fan of their stuff. Nothing they do is normal, which is reflected in their slogan "Off-centered Ales for Off-centered people." Here is my review of this beast. As you might have guessed, this is a pretty dark brew that the light can barely penetrate when the glass is held up; some touches of deep red were visible when I held the beer up to the light. The bottle I poured held a head for a pretty short amount of time. The aromas were pretty alcohol-driven, as you might have guessed. Many have compared it to a port in smell, which is not an unfair characterization. I caught some raison-type qualities along with cocoa touches. There was also plenty of deep roasted, dark graininess to this brew, which was just fabulous. As you might imagine, the alcohol warmth was very ...

Dogfish Head's 12o Minute IPA is practically a rite of passage among beer geeks.  Q.) How is it then that until recently I was a 120 Minute virgin?  A.) Ohio's silly alcohol laws. So since I couldn't find this beer in my neck of the woods, while I found myself in Michigan the other day I scoured the small towns I drove through till I discovered a beer and wine shop that might have a different selection.  Lo and Behold, there on the shelf was one remaining bottle of the holy grail of hops. No wonder this beast is so renowned.  It boasts a fierce ABV of 20%.  I had to chuckle.  This is 1% lower than the alcohol laws placed on hard liquor in Ohio.  Forget the audacity of the alcohol content...it has an IBU of 120.  The bitterest of most Imperial IPAs rarely top 100.  With this in mind, I knew that this was one malty beer. Dogfish Head's describes this beer as: Too extreme to be called beer? Brewed to a colossal 45-degree plato, boiled for a full 2 hours while being continuously hopped with high-alpha American hops, then dry-hopped daily in the fermenter for a month & aged for another ...

The choice for Dogfish Head's Aprihop was certainly a seasonal one.  I always enjoy a beer that matches the season, so a fresh, crisp sounding Aprihop sounded like a delicious break from the rich spiced beer that accompany winter. The beer poured a pretty orange color.  It actually reminded me a bit of the color of a dark apricot.  The head was minimal, and judging by the continual streams of petite bubbles that supported and fed it, I was guessing this beer was dry and more than sufficiently carbonated. The smell of Aprihop was certainly unique, and difficult to dissect.  To be honest, it smelled sort of...err...funky.  I am not opposed to seemingly unpleasant aromas emanating from certain beers; in fact, at times I thinks it bodes well on what is to come.  If one is expecting a fruity apricot balm from this beer, look somewhere else (maybe Pyramid's apricot ale).  Citrus notes, mixed with grapefruity hop smells, and a distinct but not overwhelming apricot aroma pretty much cover up malt undertones, but they are there. The taste, like the smell, is odd.  It is not what I expected.  It is here that some caramel and nutty malts can be picked up on, ...

Considerable approbation is deserved when a brewery manages to achieve high levels of excellence with each beer they produce.  Plenty of breweries nail one particular style, but the menagerie of beers they create is lacking.  While the examples are abundant, this a beer review, not a brewery review.  The point is, Dogfish Head invariably produces quality and delicious beer, and their 90 Minute IPA is no exception. The beer poured smoothly.  High in carbonation, I thought.  The light piercing the liquid revealed a beautiful coppery/ruby color.   After the nearly one inch of head dissipated the edges of my glass with thick lacing, foreshadowing the maltiness to come. The hop filled aroma was citrusy and dominant, but forcing my senses further the malty and alcoholic character of the beer was present.  The toasted malt coupled with a raisin/grape aroma practically warmed up the inside of my nose. The mouth-feel was pleasant.  Despite the high carbonation the IPA was extremely smooth and silky on my tongue.  Initially I was a tad surprised at how 'unhoppy' the beer was off the bat.  I mean, I was expecting a burst of bitterness as soon as the beer hit my tongue, and don't get me wrong, it was ...