REVIEW: Dogfish Head Urkontinent

Another day, another exciting experimental beer from Dogfish. Today's beer is called Urkontinent. Urkontinent refers to the mega continent that existed in prehistoric times prior to continental drift. A concept that I've always found kind of fascinating. And in the spirit of a time where traversing the globe was a whole lot easier Urkontinent is brewed using different spices. One from each continent in fact. Well, except for Antarctica. What is it with this guys and slacking n agriculture? But anyways, Dogfish actually collaborated with Google to come up with the different spices for each continent. A very cool video about the creation of this beer can be found here, recommended. The spices at work in this big hearty dubbel are wattleseed from Australia, toasted amaranth from South America, rooibos tea from Africa, myrica gale from Europe and honey from the good old U.S. of A. Now, I know what honey is, but I haven't the foggiest what any of the others are let alone what kind of flavors they're going to impart to the beer. But Dogfish hasn't let me down yet. To the beer!

REVIEW: Dogfish Head Chateau Jiahu

It's been a few months since I've taken a look at a beer from Dogfish Head, but this weekend I found myself down at The Party Source in Bellvue and a couple of the big bottles of their more experimental beers caught my eye. Namely, today's beer, Chateau Jiahu. This beer is named for a neolithic settlement discovered in the Yellow River Valley of China. Pottery at Jiahu was discovered with the residue of what is the oldest known fermented beverage. Made with rice, honey, and fruit nearly 9000 years ago. Dogfish Head has made a practice of combing through the annals of history for inspiration for their beers and through molecular archaeology it can be determined what our far flung ancestors were drinking. All of that history and research leads to this. Chateau Jiahu, a 10% ABV, 10 IBU ale brewed with brown rice syrup, orange blossom honey, muscat grape, barley malt, and hawthorn berry and fermented with sake yeast. Sounds good to me. To the beer!