![]() ![]() ![]() Our huge beers are meant to drink more like beers – they’re carbonated like a beer, they just have way more flavor, complexity, and hoppiness. “Unlike bigger beers that drink like a liquor, 120 Minute still drinks like a beer. We’ve found over the last 7-8 years that is where its balance is best,” Sam says. “120 Minute started off at 20% alcohol, but now we’ve dialed it in to come in right about 18% alcohol. The brewery dubbed 120 Minute IPA ‘the holy grail for hopheads’ and the beer’s reputation grew from there. Once 60 Minute and 90 Minute were alive and beloved, 120 Minute IPA came along and broke the record for the strongest IPA in the world. When the first batch of 90 Minute IPA premiered at the brewpub, Sam remembers that “continual hopping provided a beautiful balance to our Imperial IPA – allowing us to add a foolhardy amount of hops throughout the boil without making 90 Minute crushingly bitter.” Thus 90 Minute IPA was born and a short while later, a younger sibling was conceived: 60 Minute IPA. He Macgyvered up a vibrating football game and a bucket of hops so that while the beer boiled, it received continuous doses of hops, hoping that the finished beer would have all of the aroma and bitterness that beer drinkers want from an IPA. ![]() Sam decided to test this idea and instead of adding all of the hops to his IPA in one massive dose, Sam tried hopping the wort continuously while it boiled. On the show, the chef added pepper to a soup a little at a time, instead of one large addition. Sam grew an idea one day after watching a cooking show. While conventional wisdom says a brewer should add hops to an IPA at specific intervals while the wort is boiling, Sam decided to tinker. One of the first “off-centered ales” that Dogfish Head became known for was an innovation on the India Pale Ale (IPA) style. Sam, Mariah, and their hundreds of co-workers stayed true to the spirit of experimentation that inspired Sam, and from those first batches sprung a brewing philosophy that Dogfish Head calls “Off-centered ales for off-centered people.” In the current Dogfish Head brewhouse, Sam’s original 13-gallon brewing system stands as a monument to the company’s humble roots while the brewery’s 200-barrel brewhouse fills massive fermenters full of off-centered ales. Sam & Mariah Calagione – founders of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery While they are brewing larger than Sam’s initial business plan could fathom, some of the brewery’s recent cult favorite beers have pushed the growth into overdrive and the “off-centered” brewer does not plan to stop anytime soon. Dogfish Head now makes batches of beer larger what Sam used to make in one year. That was my biggest aspiration.” Never in his wildest dreams would Sam foresee Dogfish Head Craft Brewery’s current growth – Dogfish Head has grown into the 12 th largest brewery in the United States and is distributed in 42 states. “We were going to have a seven-barrel brewery someday with 14-barrel tanks. There were only 600 operating breweries operating in the United States and the Calagiones had dreams of one day making it big. In his business, he noticed that his beers were slightly different than any other brewery in the country because of this culinary focus, so Sam worked his unusual focus on beer into his brewery’s motto, Dogfish Head’s has made “Off-Centered Ales for Off-Centered People” ever since. Beers like Chicory Stout, Aprihop, and Raison d’Etre each had a featured ingredient to show the versatility of beer and the “off-centered” nature of the company. In his beer, Sam’s focus was on using culinary ingredients in the brewing process. Sam was the head brewer and he made beer 13 gallons at a time. In 1995 Dogfish Head Brewery co-existed with Dogfish Head Brewing & Eats in a small storefront in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. When Sam Calagione and his wife Mariah founded Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, they started the smallest brewery in America in one of the smallest states in America. ![]()
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