Dogfish Head Brewery visit.

A couple weeks ago I was sitting at Lord Hobo with a good friend and fellow beer enthusiast and posed him with a simple question. "When was the last time you went on an adventure?" He didn't really know how to respond other than..."I don't know, but I'm listening". A few pints later we had our finalized plan for our adventure. We were going to DELAWARE! I know I know, some of people reading this are saying what's in Delaware? And the rest of you are saying that is an easy question to answer. In a few words, Dogfish Head Brewery, and DFH Brewpub.

I have been wanting to make the trip down to visit DFH ever since I turned 21. I have a friend who lives down there too so that made it even more tempting because I had a place to crash. Soooo I finally decided spontaneously on a Wednesday night of drinking/recruiting my beer bud that we were making the journey that Saturday. We got up (a bit later than scheduled) and left Boston at 6:50am. The road trip was interesting and I could write and entire blog about that alone but lets stay focused. This is a beer blog. So we made it to Delaware around 1:30 that afternoon, but had to keep venturing to south Delaware to the final destination. We hit beach traffic...like halfway up the state...apparently people in DE love the beach. At this point we were racing against the clock. The last tour was at 3:30 for the entire weekend. Did we make it? If so what time? Well those are great questions. We made it to the brewery at 3:27 and were allowed on the last tour which was already full. Already the trip was worth it. One of the most amazing things about DFH is how fast it is expanding. I think it is a great example of how big craft beer is becoming in America. They actually can't keep up with their demand right now and had to pull out of a few smaller states to fulfill their orders in the larger states. Positive problem to have. Anyway I'll post some pictures below and captions from the tour.

The tasting part after the tour they were sampling 4 beers. 60 min IPA, Burton Baton, Raison D'Etre, and Palo Santo Marron. The only one I had not tried was the Burton Baton because it was new but very good. It was a blended beer between an Imperial IPA and and English style old ale. 10% ABV and aged in oak barrels for a month. I would recommend getting some if you see it on the shelf. My new favorite though is the Palo Santo Marron. I think I had only had it once before and it was when I already had been drinking but it is a 12% ABV brown ale aged in a giant barrel made of Palo Santo wood. Very malty and delicious.

The original brewery

The Brew deck to the back left

 A lot of the small fermentation tanks. They recently added these a few years ago to keep up with demand! Also they are cutting holes in the ceiling to put in newer taller fermenting tanks across form these ones.

 Our tour guide John. A great guy who loves DFH.

 10,000 gallon aging barrels. On the left is one of two oak barrels and the one on the right is the Palo Santo barrel (wood is from Paraguay and it costs about 8x more to make than the oak barrels)

 The note we left for their wall of visitors.

 The tasting room/store.

 The Steampunk Treehouse

Scott outside the brewery with some of their large fermenting tanks next to him

 The DFH brewery!

After the brewery tour and tasting we went about 20 mins down the road to the DFH brewpub for dinner where we met my friend and her roommate. All DFH beers on draught and really good food. Best part though, the bill for four people (4 entrees and 7 beers on it) was only $75. You can't get that in Boston. If we had the same amount of food and drink around here it would have been at least $100. We finished up at the brewpub, jumped in the ocean because it was right there and then drove back to crash for the night at my friends apartment. Next morning, drove back to Boston. Total trip time 36 hours. Great success.