Dogfish head's Burton Baton

A blend of Old Ale and Imperial IPA? Where in the Hell did they decide to come up with that? I could have sworn I had this before, but maybe I swore off Dogfish before it became widely available in Texas. Didn't know it was an IPA, at least in part, or I might not have ignored it. Then again, who knows what it will actually be, based on their penchant for mislabeling styles.

Pours a loosely filtered deep reddish amber with a nice tan head. Sweet and floral, like a decent IPA should smell--I guess the Old Ale tones it down a bit from the Imperial IPA. The 10% ABV comes out in the smell the more it warms. And in the taste. Otherwise it has a decent feel to it, with plenty of malt that translates into the taste well. It has a fair amount of hops as well, but it's well-balanced and well thought out. Probably the best Dogfish beer I've had.

Dogfish Head's Raison D'Etre

I'm guessing this will be another over-hyped Dogfish beer, but I swear I'm keeping my mind open.

Pours a deep brown--same color but not as opaque as Palo Santo, with a nice tan head that stays. Smells kinda fizzy. Very slightly nutty, like a brown, but mostly just kind of... there.

Eh, not bad. I expected something much more off the wall. The 8% ABV is imperceptible, and there isn't a hint of the standard Belgian yeast flavors. It feels a little fizzy as well, but in general it's pretty good. Not hoppy or bready, just kind of light in feel despite the color and alcohol.

Dogfish Head's 60 Minute IPA

I was surprised to see that my Dogfish Head beers, except for the big ones, predate my posts here. Been a while and I've felt no real urge to go back and buy more of them, because I have always considered this brewery's IPAs a bit overrated.

Pours a hazy almost amber with a huge pillowy tan head. Throws off a ton of floral hops at first, but then kind of dies out in the smell. Slightly sweet, more from the hops than the malt, it seems.

This one tastes kind of like your regular old pale. Nice body to it with a decent amount of malt, but the hops take a back seat to the hops, which you wouldn't expect from an IPA, much less "The continually-hopped" one.

Pretty much like I remembered it--average.

Dogfish Head's Red and White

Alright, I know ahead of time it's a wit, but I couldn't avoid the hype.

Pours a solid amber with large particulates and a nice light tan head.

Smells sweet, like a white grape juice. The yeast smell that I don't like is barely present, so I'm hoping the taste is better than I expected.

Sure enough, it's like a sweet, grapey, light bodied wit. The taste that I usually don't like in Belgians is almost imperceptible, so I drank it all. I won't buy it again, but it was interesting.

Dogfish Head's Squall IPA

I'm a sucker for the bombers that are new to Houston, and even though I'm hit and miss on Dogfish beers and I think they play fast and loose with the rules (Palo Santo is not a brown!), I picked this one up right before the 4th,

Pours a nice enough amber, but it pours fast. I was expecting to see more body, and if it's this obvious this early, I'm guessing that it'll be even more obvious in the feel.

Smells very nice. Big and grassy, but not too much malt behind it. I'm thinking I'm one step closer to being disappointed.

Yep, sure enough. The body is just not there, which is a real let down for a beer that is supposed to be this big. It's bitter enough, but there's no malt follow through. The lack of body makes it land flat, and it just feels and tastes fizzy.

I have a couple more DFH bombers sitting around. I'll mix them in with beers that I think will even out the good/bad ratio.

Dogfish Head's Palo Santo Marron

So I said to myself, I think I'll start off with something light, like a brown, before starting in on the stouts tonight. Holy Crap Batman, this ain't a brown.

And in some ways that's fine, but in others it just shouldn't be called something it's not. You can't brew a pale and call it a pilsner (I'm looking at you, Prima Pils) any more than you can brew a damn near impy stout and call it a brown. I'm all for bending the rules, but you shouldn't just break them. Some people may call that "creative," or even "on the edge," but the truth is that this is a stout. No ifs ands or buts. It's not "difficult to define" any more than Arrogant Bastard makes beer that I'm "just not ready for." It's a stout.

It pours inky brown, like a brown stout. Great deep tan head that can't stay too long because of how malty the beer is--the pure weight seems to drag the head down. Small, slow bubbles. Opaque, with red highlights.

Deep, malty smell, like an immensely dark bread. Sharp alcohol smell comes through as well. Vinous, almost like a port.

Feels like a milk stout, because it has that smooth texture that lactose can impart. A vinous alcohol hits you right up front, and then fades to a heavily roasted malt flavor. As it warms the coffee comes out stronger, as does the alcohol. I like the beer. I will say that. But it ain't no brown. Its main flaw is an absolute inability to hide the alcohol. I think a good beer with this much body can have 12% ABV and not feel like it, and this one should have done more to try to mask it here. It gets in the way of the flavors and adds nothing. It would have been much better if properly labeled and without the high ABV.

Dogfish Head's Fort

I know, fruit beers are girly, right? Except when they're not.

This one is a huge beer. Brewed with a literally a ton of pureed raspberries over a ridiculously long two month fermentation period, this beer is billed as the world's strongest fruit beer. At 18% ABV, I'm sure they're right. The lengthy fermentation also allows for the beer to mellow up for such a high alcohol content as well, and the fact that the raspberries are pureed makes them easily subsumed by this beer during conditioning.

Fort pours amber, a surprise for a raspberry beer. It has a small tan head that quickly thins to a collar. Decent carbonation with huge bubbles, the biggest I've ever seen in a beer.

Whoa. It was at this point that I had to come back to see how much alcohol this had. I like to review beers without reading too much about them, and I hadn't read about the enormous amount of alcohol or details on the amount of raspberries. With the alcohol smell is a raspberry twang that's familiar but I can't place. Kind of like a Jolly Rancher--but in a good way.

Yep. A malty Jolly Rancher with an alcohol bite that grabs you as if it were a weak liquor.

I like it. It has a twangy sweetness that keeps it from being too syrupy, which is a problem with many fruit beers, and the alcohol is also surprisingly in check. It's there though, and there's no doubt about it. It's just a couple of points behind the alcohol content in Dogfish's 120 Minute IPA but it is remarkably easier to drink. In a big beer like this with so much fruit and alcohol, there is little of the malt to taste but it does contribute greatly to the smooth feel of the beer. The carbonation and high alcohol content lighten the body up quite a bit, as well as the taste, and help keep it from being too syrupy.

This is the first fruit beer I've ever had that tasted like real fruit. Admittedly I've had limited exposure, but the others were syrupy and/or overly sweet. It's so big and there's so much of it that it should definitely be shared. Great dessert beer.