Why Dogfish Head is Great For Craft Beer

While writing yesterday's beer review of Dogfish Head's Indian Brown Ale, which is a cross between an American Brown Ale, India Pale Ale and a Scottish Ale, I couldn't help but think of Dogfish owner Sam Calagione going off on a set of beer geeks on a Beer Advocate thread a few months ago.

Dogfish Head takes some heat in the court of public opinion due to the fact that it gets fairly liberal in terms of combing different styles of beer into one finalized product. In my opinion, the brewery's finest hour was the release of Noble Rot, a combination of wine and beer, as a full-bottle production this past January.

I think the thing that was closest to that type was Dogfish Head's Midas Touch, which was brewed with ingredients found in ancient bowls in the tomb of what's supposed to be King Midas. What about Raison D'Etre? It's brewed with beet sugar for God sake.

How can you criticize any craft brewer, even if you don't approve of a particular beer? Craft brewers put more heart into their final product than any of the American majors do. This post is also inspired by the comment I received on my review of Blue Moon Summer Honey Wheat by founder, Keith Villa.

When I've written something about your everyday craft brewer's beer on here and they've found the post concerning them, I've received an email asking if they can send me some of their beers to try for free. It doesn't end like that when it comes to the American majors. God only knows if that was really Villa or some Public Relations intern just getting the company's two cents out there on everything that mentions Blue Moon's name.

If you're going to say something bad about any brewer, it should be the big-time American companies that continue to ram down your throats a product that has been watered-down by more and more by the year and only worries about profits and its public image. A craft brewer only worries about the product it puts on taps across his or her distribution area.