Dogfish Head Brewery Private Tour!!

Look at the beast's eyes!
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Ooh baby. And it didn't even start well.

I was a little late because apparently the lady was born yesterday and had never heard of the cul-de-sac that the Brewery's new headquarters is within. But by a simple twist of fate, while nearly yelling at the lady, I noticed the sign for the "Cannery Village Center," and realized that by my own sheer (blind) will, I had somehow gotten the car there. Wow.

The only thing that beat the smell of the fermenting malt was the taste of it, pre-sparge and hot!

The machine that grinds the malted grains into an incredibly fine powder.
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The place looked abandoned, or at least under heavy construction, but the bar was right at the entrance, and a guy was serving Raison D'Etra to the 3 people there. He reviewed what I had missed, which were glasses filled with a few types of malt, some barley, and whole hops and pellet hops. The latter is easy to preserve, and is jam packed with whole hops, so it packs a better punch than the straight petals. Then he pulled out an ear of dried corn. 'This', he said, 'is corn. This should not be in beer. If you see your beer has a corn product in it, do not drink'. Then he lifted a box of Uncle Ben's rice to the bar. 'This, is rice. This is poison. Do not drink beer that has rice in the ingredients'. I asked him about the American macrobrews adding the rice to dilute flavor (or, I should say, save money, but which one concerns me?) and he said he had never drank such a beer. But that friends tell him how you can taste the rice in Miller after drinking only the good stuff for a while. I pondered this.

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After a tasting of the India Brown Ale I concluded (first clue was no discussion of the taste), that the people I was standing near represented the very worst of Brewery tour-goers. Two were an older couple from a neighboring town who must have gotten lost in the cul-de-sac or something because they DIDN'T LIKE BEER. The third was a dodgy-looking fellow who wasn't drinking because he was waiting for an interview and killing time. He announced that he preferred Yuengling. Bad idea. Not getting hired.

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We couldn't explore the bottling room because they were switching from 750ml bottles to 12 ouncers, which I guess is both hard and messy. But we got to peek, and look at the brand-spanking new vats and conical vats and various pumps and valve computers and other sparkling magic-makers. My guide told me later that most of the equipment is only a week old, which I could ascertain from the giddiness observed in the all the employees. My favorite part of this first part of the tour was peeking in at the lab rats, who were particularly giddy.

The Brewery's older barrel filler.
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They are "beer scientists." Their job is to test the vats for sanitation, as well as test and sample all the stages of beer and the final product. Much is riding on their shoulders. These two men have such advanced palates at their disposal, that they are the guarantors who make every batch of 90-minute IPA taste the same as the last one. For science, they imbibe an average of a six-pack over the course of a 10 to 6 day, and test dozens of petri dishes for the perfect formula of delicious. These men sit at the hub where art and science converge. I want their fucking job.

so many birds!
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After a look at some of the older machines, the three anti-enthusiasts left or went on to his interview (futile!). I stood at the bar sipping my 90-minute- yes, sipping, our guide warned us that the local cops know when the tours are held- and started rattling off at the guide, generally communicating the vastness of my beer-enthusiasm. Am I coming off too strong here? Too bad, this place was magic. You could smell the malt cooking! He then surprised me by apologizing for the lame ass tour. I, of course, had hoped for better but was quite enchanted at the time. He went on to say that he immediately knew that cutting the tour short would be the best way to get the duds out of the brewery (for their own goods), and we began to chat. I was interested in a limited release small batch, and he sold me one of the four four-packs remaining in the warehouse.

I asked if I could take some pictures. He said 'let me take you to the best shots in the whole place'. I asked about the smell. He said that I was smelling the fermenting malt above us through the smell of acetate they use to clean. He took me upstairs to a control booth. He chatted with a friend. The friend clicked his mouse to release pressurized water from vat B, which came out of the stone penis on a statue of a little boy peeing. He clicked the mouse many times and made an 'O' face. We laughed. I peeked into vat B (2nd of the 3 vats, the third is the addition of hops) and saw the hay-colored sludge churning at incredible hot temperatures. The guy from the booth poured me a glass of the beer, hot and only two-thirds of the way through the production process. My guide told me to sip it, and try to detect hints of smoked peat, juniper, and maple. I could taste the maple, but the malt was near overpowering. If I had no capacity to detemine texture or consistency, I would have been sure I was sipping grog. The malt was so very strong, it tasted thick. He asked to try too, and very much enjoyed the flavor. For you beer experts out there, what I drank was the Laurel Wort. I thanked the guy from the booth, and headed downstairs to check out the machines and buy stuff. I bought two four-packs and a t-shirt. Then I saw the glasses. Every Dogfish Head hand-crafted brew can be enjoyed in one of three glasses. All were available for purchase. I asked for a snifter, and he said I could have it for free.

We discussed me exploring the microbrews I come across, and writing them up, and he wanted very much to give me the best local route to my next destination. He took me inside the offices, where he asked his boss, I assumed, who was sitting and typing with a cup from the bar filled with 90-minute. The whole office gave me directions and wished me a pleasant journey. I thanked them, used the men's bathroom and left. Genuinely happy. Not tipsy, not lonely, happy.

That night I drove to Chincoteague Island, Virginia, home of the famous wild horses and lots of history. Along the way I saw the largest flock of gulls I can remember, flying above and landing on a field, against a very pretty sunset. I took a picture. New goal: getting used to pulling over when I'm taking pictures. Tomorrow I drive down Assateague Island, passed Onancock (I believe that is the famed town that the pirate Blackbeard lived before he became a pirate), under and over the 20-mile tunnel and bridge system across the bay, as long as this storm doesn't get nasty.