"DogfishHead" news and stories

Photo: Joshua M. Bernstein.

Joshua M. Bernstein, Gourmet.com's beer columnist, has written about brews, bars and booze for New York Magazine, Time Out New York, ForbesTraveler.com and the New York Times.

When fall hits, kids get giddy about the mother lode of Halloween candy to come. But adults, too, have reason to celebrate the harvest season -- namely, pumpkin beers.

These vegetable-influenced ales are as varied as jack-o'-lantern carvings. They range from Cape Ann's smooth and chocolaty Fisherman's Pumpkin Stout to Dogfish Head's Punkin Ale, a rich ale dosed with brown sugar and pumpkin flesh. But our favorite Halloween sipper hails from Lakewood, N.Y. -- Southern Tier.

Since the western New York brewery's humble 2004 beginnings, it has spread across the country like kudzu, reaching more than 20 states. The rapid success is due to burly brews like the ludicrously hopped Unearthly Imperial IPA (11 percent ABV!), the dessert-like Crème Brûlee Imperial Milk Stout and the Pumking.

The new movie "Beer Wars" was shown last night to an extremely sympathetic audience at Brooklyn's bar-cum-music venue Bell House.

How can one be "sympathetic" to, um, beer? Well, in this very straightforward good guy versus bad guy documentary, the Big Three (Miller, Coors and Anheuser-Busch/InBev) are set up as the Goliath to the microbrewers' David, including Dogfish Head's charming Sam Calagione.

Of course, the Big Three are now just the Big Two, but that small detail didn't stop this Brooklyn audience from engaging in a rowdy shout-down over the course of the film -- a distinctly one-sided vehicle with a chipper bespectacled narrator. Vintage ads and interviews with "Bad Beer" millionaires in polished boardrooms are interspersed with folksy, homey interviews with Calagione and Rhonda Kallman, the woman behind caffeinated brew MoonShot. Various microbreweries also snagged cameos. (Pennsylvania's Yuengling received rousing cheers).

The most telling parts of the film came when the camera zoomed into the refrigerated aisle of grocery stores and placed big red boxes around beers clearly dear to audience members' hearts. It was with a collective gasp that suds-lovers realized their beloved Stella was connected to Anheuser-Busch.

So did the film's message hit home?

Kyle Spencer, 23, and Xiao Yu, 24, are barely of drinking age and have been brewing beer for less than a year, but nonetheless wear their ambition, literally, on their sleeves.

"Brewing for a living is something we both wanted to do," says Spencer, promoting his nascent brand by wearing a gray, short-sleeved Beta Beer T-shirt alongside partner Xiao Yu. Despite his expert presentation, Spencer is nervous: For the first time his product will be tasted by "actual people who have beer backgrounds."

This kind of fledgling enthusiasm was par for the course at the Brooklyn Beer Experiment, a new cook-off in a city obsessed with cook-offs, part of the groundswell of our nation's craft-brewmania and a first from competitors turned co-organizers Theo Peck and Nick Suarez. "We were cook-off rivals," says Suarez, "and decided we could do this as well as anyone else could." Sunday afternoon at Brooklyn's the Bell House -- a space primarily used as a music venue -- more than 25 chefs infused their eats with beer, and local homebrewers like Spencer and Yu hawked their wares.

I had a pretty hectic day yesterday. Once I got home, all I wanted to do was sit on the back porch, enjoy the beautiful weather, and relax with a beer. These are some of my favorite beers to drink while winding down from a busy day. What are some of yours?

1. Woodchuck Draft Cider has such a sweet, crisp taste.
2. Woodchuck Pear Cider is also light and refreshing.
3. Stella Artois: one of my favorites any time, but especially nice to sip on a lovely afternoon.
4. Hefeweizen is simply delicious. I don't have a favorite, but Paulaner and Sam Adams are both good and easy to find.
5. Dogfish Head Black and Blue: a recently discovered treat that (apparently) is only occasionally brewed.
6. Honey Brown Ale is easy to drink and has a lot of nostalgic pull for me.
7. A nice Pilsner, like Reality Czeck, is great for an easy afternoon.
8. I could drink Lindeman's Framboise Lambic all day, every day: it's like drinking carbonated, lightly alcoholic raspberry juice.

I'd like to think that in some small way beer geeks like my friends and I are to blame for this year's uptick in craft beer sales.

But I know that's a lie, since we usually stick to a few brands, Dogfish Head, Stone Brewing Co., Rogue, Harpoon, Heavyweight, etc. Aw heck, basically we drink any U.S. craft beer that's good, and available, on the East Coast. Of course, we've also been known to sample some fine non-U.S. brews, including Belgian Trappist ales.

Regardless of my crew's drinking habits the numbers speak for themselves. U.S. sales of craft beer grew 11 percent in the first half of this year compared with 2005, according to the Brewers Association.

Paul Gatza, a director of the group's professional division, says consumption "appears to be accelerating." Rest assured my friends and I will continue to do our parts to help aid this noble cause.

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