Weekend of Compelling Ales (and Whatnot)

I haven't posted in quite some time. I'm not great at keeping up with this blogging stuff. And it's not for lack of material either. In the three months since I last posted, I have tried a number of vintage beers, including a three-year-old Avery Mephistopheles, a beer chasing expedition that led to me obtaining and tasting Founder's Curmudgeon's Better Half (tasty) and a vertical tasting of Dogfish 120 Minute IPA from 2008 and 2011. I also paid a visit to the new Troeg's brewery in Hershey, PA and sampled a couple of their new (and awesome) Scratch Beer series, including the amazing Triple Mango IPA. But a week ago I attended one of the greatest events I have ever attended, Dogfish Head's third annual Weekend of Compelling Ales and Whatnot (WOCAAW). And it's worth blogging about.

I knew I wanted to go to this last September when I ran in the Dogfish Dash. It's a weekend of Dogfish spent between the brewery in Milton, DE and Rehoboth Beach, DE that is filled with awesome beers, food pairings, and chilling with Sam himself.

Chillin' with Sam (I'm in the middle)

The weekend was loosely thrown together, with specials at the brewpub in Rehoboth all weekend, an event at the brewery on Saturday, and a beer brunch on Sunday. My friends and I got in Friday evening and a couple of their rare, brewpub-exclusive beers like Flux Capacitor were already kicked. However, we still got some dandies. My wife ordered a brewpub exclusive right before it kicked. It was called Fungus T. Mungus (no doubt an ode to Incubus) and it tasted a bit like Sah'Tea. It was Dogfish's Beer Advocate collaboration from last year. I kept track of the beers I had all weekend. Here is the rundown from Friday night:

• Burton Baton - Randalled (filtered) through Cascade hops, vanilla beans, and brown honey rum oak chips (10%)
• Raison d'Extra '08 bottle (18ish%)
• Poppaskull 2010 (9.5%)
• 120 Minute IPA Randalled through Cascade hops
• Black and Blue 2012 (10%)
• World Wide Stout aged on brown honey rum oak chips for 6 months

Of course, the find of the weekend was Raison d'Extra, one of my Holy Grails of beer. I split a bottle with my friend and we ended up buying a four-pack to split before we left (they had about a case of it for sale!). I can only describe the taste as being smacked in the face with a sack of raisins. If you like that kind of thing, you will probably like Raison d'Extra. The Poppaskull was my favorite beer of the night though. It's extremely limited and I don't remember it ever being released in stores (although I think it was). It's a collaboration between Dogfish and Three Floyds and it's a "deep, golden ale spiced with cardamom and fermented using a robust Belgian yeast strain". That pretty much sums it up. It's a fantastic beer. A close second was the 120 filtered through the Cascade hops. It takes a lot of the alcohol edge off the 18% beer.

OMG Raisins!!

On Saturday, there was an event at the brewery in Milton between 10 am and 3 pm. There were tours, tastings and delicious food pairings, as well as Sam presentations throughout the day. When we got there, we got wristbands and punch cards with all the beers that they had on tap. We got awesome custom Dogfish tasting glasses to use all day and custom coasters to take home.

Day 2 - it begins

We ended up tasting all 15 beers on their list, along with this year's version of Saison du BUFF, which was originally a collaboration between Dogfish, Stone, and Victory. The 15 (+1) beers we tried:

• Aprihop w/ cheese pairing (there were apricots in the cheese!)
• 120 Minute IPA
• Immort Ale w/ cheese pairing
• Midas Jitos (Randallization of Midas Touch through mint and lime)
• Red & White (2011)
• Black & Blue (2011) w/ dark chocolate pairing
• My Antonia w/ pretzel pairing
• Namaste w/ cheese pairing
• Sah'tea
• Ta Henket
• Chateau Jiahu
• Palo Santo Marron
• Burton Baton
• Dirty Fermentini (2011 Beer Advocate collaboration)
• El Diablo Verde w/ nacho bar (first small batch brew)
• Saison du BUFF

Obviously there is a lot of awesome on that list, but the food pairings were particularly excellent. The El Diablo Verde is the first in a new series that they are doing at the brewery. Every Friday, they allow employees to brew small batches outside the brewery. The winner of the competition goes on tap at the Rehoboth brewpub. The Diablo Verde is a Jalapeno pepper beer and, paired with the nacho bar, was pretty fantastic. The guy who brewed it also became a celebrity for the weekend, especially to my group of friends, who yelled "El Diablo!" every time we saw him. I also went on a tour of the brewery, which was pretty cool. We got to see how small their brewery really is (it's amazing they are approaching 150,000 barrels a year with their setup) and the Palo Santo tanks, along with the equipment that Sam used to start the brewery 16 years ago. We got to chill with Sam, who seemed to be making a concerted effort to talk to every single person at the event. We got to chat with him a few times and got a couple pictures of him. My wife got a bit starstruck by him so my friend Kate took her up to him, had this little exchange:

Kate: Hi Sam. This is Sarah. She is shy but she is a big fan.
Sam: Hi Sarah. (shakes hand) Can I give you a hug?

Sam gave her a hug and then got a picture with her. My wife was absolutely gushing. All in all, it was a wonderful day and it makes me appreciate the things that Sam and Dogfish as a company do for beer and the craft brew industry even more.

Our completed cards contained a hidden message!

I bought some cool stuff at the gift shop, including a running shirt, a case of Saison du BUFF, some 75 Minute Cask Ale (if you can get your hands on some of this, DO IT) and a set of awesome coasters. After the event, we headed over to the brewpub for the rest of the night. The beer list wasn't as good the second night, but we still scored some good beers. Here is the list from Saturday night:

• Life and Limb 2009
• Positive Contact (in stores in May)
• Saison du BUFF
• Bricolage
• 120 Minute IPA
• Burton Baton
• Olde School 2009

The Positive Contact was a winner on Saturday. It's a half-beer, half-cider combination and it's the latest in Dogfish's music series. They collaborated with Dan the Automator, the lead singer of the hip-hop group Deltron 3030. It's kind of in between the BUFF and the Poppaskull in terms of taste and spiciness, but definitely an excellent beer. The Bricolage is a super-malty farmhouse-style Saison and is a brewpub exclusive. There was also a Twin Peaks-inspired beer called Black Lodge, a black IPA, that was pretty good. Needless to say, we stumbled back to the hotel on Saturday after two awesome days of drinking.

On Sunday morning, we checked out of our hotel and headed over to the brewpub for brunch. We were all hurting pretty bad, but I had to try a couple of their beers on tap. They had one called Count Chocula, which was a small brewpub batch chocolate ale. I have to say, it was just okay. I also had a World Wide Stout Randallized with coffee, vanilla beans, and cocoa nibs. That was a pretty fantastic combination, but the beer stayed on my palate all day. My friends Matt and Trey got Blood Marys made with bacon-infused vodka and said it was like drinking bacon. After brunch we headed home, but all decided that the weekend was worth the trip and it's one we would be making again next year. The amazing beers and atmosphere made it worth the trip, but the most amazing thing was how down-to-earth Sam was. He couldn't have been any nicer and watching him on Saturday, I realized that he was in his element surrounded by so many people who love his beer. He really is a genuine guy and he does some great things for the beer industry. As long as he keeps doing things like this, I'll be an avid supporter of Dogfish Head.

And if you don't believe me, just go to this link. This is picture taken by Sam with his camera phone (my friends and I are on the left). He thought it was so cool that so many people love his company and his beer and needed to take a picture of his fans to post on his blog (there is also a video of the event on YouTube). Anyway, if you live anywhere near Delaware, it's a worthwhile event and it's one I plan on attending every year. I have homebrew updates as well, but I'll post those in a separate post.