Dogfish Head Brewery is a brewing company based in Milton, Delaware founded by Sam Calagione.[1] It opened in 1995[2][3] and produces 75,000 barrels of beer annually.[4]
Dogfish Head's output tends toward experimental or "extreme" beers, such as their tongue-in-cheek "Liquor de Malt," a bottle-conditioned malt liquor which typically comes in its own brown paper bag. Their products often use non-standard ingredients, such as green raisins in their "Raison D'Être". Some of their beers, including the WorldWide Stout, 120 Minute India Pale Ale, and the raspberry-flavored strong ale Fort, are highly alcoholic, reaching 18% to 20% alcohol by volume (typical beers have around 3% to 8% alcohol by volume).
One of Dogfish Head's more notable odd beers was a green beer called Verdi Verdi Good, produced in 2005 and sold only on draft. The beer was not colored green artificially; rather, the green color was derived from brewing a Dortmunder style beer that contained spirulina, or blue-green algae. In July 2007, the Dogfish Head Brewery released a beer modeled after the Jiahu beverage called Chateau Jiahu.[5]
Dogfish Head's signature product is its line of India Pale Ales (IPAs), which are offered in three varieties: 60 Minute, 90 Minute, and 120 Minute IPA. Their names refer to the length of the boil time of the wort in which the hops are continuously added. The longer hops are boiled, the more hop isomerization takes place, and the more bitterness is imparted to the beer. The 60 Minute is described by the company as "A session IPA brewed with Warrior, Amarillo and Mystery Hop X. Bottle-conditioned 6-packs and draft available. 60 IBUs." To further enhance their beers, Dogfish Head introduced a device in 2003 jokingly called Randall the Enamel Animal, an "organoleptic hop transducer module" which "Randallizes" a given beer by passing the beer through a large plastic tube filled with a flavor enhancer, often raw hops though adaptations with fruits and coffee beans, amongst others, have taken place. The alcohol in the beer lifts oils off the raw hops and imparts even more hop flavor to beers that were already hoppy to begin with.