Dogfish Head Alehouse was voted NoVA's Best Happy Hour by the readers of Northern Virginia magazine

Stop by weekdays from 4 to 7 and check out our happy hour specials.

GAITHERSBURG, MD BEST PLACE TO LIVE #25 - Dogfish Head Alehouse hottest spot in town

For more info go to: http://gowalla.com/spots#l=gaithersburg,md&order=checkins_count desc&per_page=20

We've just heard from CBS Evening News that the segment on craft beer they filmed at SAVOR and the Alehouse in Falls Church is scheduled to air TONIGHT (Saturday, July 3rd) at 6:30 p.m. ET.  Per the producer, it's on the schedule for Saturday, barring breaking news.  On another television related note, we can now let you know that Dogfish Head's Sam Calagione will be starring in a beer-centered Discovery Channel show called BREWED.  It will be exploring the culture, history and variety of beer.  For more information on this, click on the link: http://beernews.org/2010/06/breaking-sam-calagione-to-star-in-new-beer-centered-discovery-channel-show/


CHEERS

World Cup at Dogfish

We're kicking off the World Cup at the Alehouse's.

Dogfish will be open at 10am every morning during the World Cup.
GOOOOAAAAALLLLL!!!

Father's Day Beer Dinner - Includes a gift for each dad.

Call your local alehouse for reservations as space is limited.  7-9pm

June 14 - Falls Church

June 15 - Gaithersburg

June 16 - Fairfax

Festina Beer Release Party on Wednesday, June 2nd, 5pm to 8pm

Beer Tasting and Food Pairing at the Greenbriar Shopping Center TotalWine

Call 703-961-1140 for reservations
Food will be sample size. The tasting and pairing will take place at the Greenbriar Town Center Total Wine, 13055-C Lee Jackson Highway, Chantilly, Va 22033.

Cans are a better package for craft beer than bottles. This runs counter to the traditional craft beer snobbery, but its true and cans are rapidly finding their way onto craft beer shelves. One wonders why, on the 75th anniversary of the introduction of canned beer on January 24, 1935, it has taken so long for the craft beer industry to realize cans can do it.
 
Cans are impervious to light and oxygen, extending the shelf and cellar life of our beers. Twelve-ounce size cans weigh only about a half-ounce compared to a bottle weight of approximately 6-7 ounces. For the average consumer, this means toting a six-pack has 3 ounces of cans rather than 2.5 pounds for bottles. Cans also are more compact, taking up almost half the space on a refrigerator or retailer shelf.

Cans won't break, even if you drop them. Therefore cans are especially suited for summer activities such as hiking, backpacking, camping, and going to the beach. Cans also are often accepted at venues where bottles are prohibited including ball parks, golf courses, and sporting arenas. Once emptied, the cans can be crushed and easily taken home for recycling. According to the Can Manufacturers Institute, aluminum cans are recycled more than any other package, reaching over 54% in 2008.

While cans are quicker to chill in a cooler or stream they don=t hold the temperature as well as bottles unless snuggled in a cozy. This may not be a negative if they are in your fridge because once removed they will more quickly reach the proper drinking temperature. Still, it=s generally suggested that the beers, whether in bottles or cans, be poured into the proper glassware for the greatest enjoyment.

The biggest obstacle to greater can usage in the craft beer market has been the consumer resistance, mostly due to age old misconceptions and poor image. When the craft beer revolution threw open the pearly gates to flavorful beer heaven, all craft beers came in bottles and cans contained insipid, mass-produced beer. Most craft beer drinkers came to think good beer should only be in bottles. Oskar Blues Brewery started to turn this around in 2002 and more and more breweries are jumping on the can-wagon.

Another bugaboo is the belief that the beer has a metallic character from contact with the can. This may have been true eons ago, but the latest epoxy coatings completely isolate the beer. Even after denting, the coating stays intact. New Belgium Brewing, which packages beers in both cans and bottles, conducted a blind tasting comparing the same beers from the two containers. They could not distinguish any difference.

Beer in cans began when Pabst and Schlitz experimented with canning Anear beer@ in 1928. Near beer raised the comment by one anonymous observer that Awhoever coined the term >near beer= was a very poor judge of distance.@ American Can Company (ACC) had been working on a beer can model using a plastic liner. ACC then produced a flat-top steel can which needed a can punch, often called a Achurchkey,@ to open.

The Krueger brewery under ACC auspices, was the first company to can beer, starting in Richmond, VA, and on January 24, 1935 introduced canned Krueger=s Finest Beer and Krueger=s Cream Ale. Within a month 84% of Richmond retailers were selling canned Krueger beer. Soon Krueger was taking large chunks of business from Anheuser-Busch, Schlitz and Pabst.

In July 1935 Pabst began distributing their export beer nationally in cans and Schlitz quickly followed. Within a year 200 million cans of beer were sold, 23 brewers were using cans and over 1.5 billion beer cans were sold in 1936.  The six-pack came into being in 1938, generally attributed to Ballantine beer. They decided that larger packages were too heavy for the average housewife.
The first all-aluminum can was a creation of Aluminum International for Hawaii Brewing Company. Hawaii Brewing is little remembered because the experiment was an unmitigated disaster. Hawaii=s Primo Beer, in 11 ounce cans with paper labels, hit the island shelves in July 1958 but the can=s special lining didn=t adequately protect the beer. The brewery ended up recalling 23,000 cases of spoiled beer but the dastardly damage to its reputation was done. Adolph Coors Brewing produced a 7 ounce aluminum can in October 1959 and showed aluminum cans could prove their metal.
 
In 1962, Dayton, Ohio inventor Ermal AErnie@ Fraze developed a self-opening can out of frustration, according to legend, when he found himself with cone-top beer cans but no churchkey at a picnic and used a car bumper instead. Fraze sold the rights to ALCOA which further developed the design. The first pop-top cans held Pittsburgh Brewing Company=s Iron City Beer in March 1962 and again used Virginia for a beer canning experiment. Iron City sales increased 233% in one year and by 1965 three-quarters of US breweries were using the new design.

Pop-tops, however, had several inherent problems including people and animals swallowing them with dire consequences, sharp edges protruding from beach sands to cut bare feet, and ubiquitous littering. Once again Virginia came to the beer can rescue. Daniel Cudzik, in 1972 working for Reynolds Metals in Richmond, applied for a patent for a non-detachable ring pull can opener called the stay-tab. It was introduced to grateful beer drinkers by Falls City Brewing of Louisville, KY in 1975.

Craft brewing finally caught the canning bug in 2002 when Oskar Blues Brewery of Lyons, CO
decided on a whim that their outrageous beers deserved an outrageous package and put Dale=s Pale Ale in cans. The very idea made them laugh but little did they know that they were starting a canning revolution.
Barrel sales at Oskar Blues have jumped from 650 barrels in 2002 just before the canning started, to a projected 31,000 barrels in 2009. Over 40 U.S. and 23 Canadian craft breweries now are canning beer. Nationally, according to Dan Wandel, IRI Senior Vice President, Beer, Wine and Spirits, craft can beer sales increased 22% in 2008 over 2007 and were up over 132% in the first half of 2009.

Numerous craft beer styles are starting to appear in cans including imperial stouts, india pale ales, scottish ales, dunkles, weisse beers, and several Belgian styles. One of the top five beer retailers in the country recently said that he thought Amost craft beers would be available in cans within ten years.@ Look for your favorite canned craft beer, soon appearing at a store near you.

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Collaboration beers are becoming extremely popular. These involve brewers from different breweries teaming together to create an interesting brew and learn from one another.Collaboration is becoming the lifeblood of the craft brewing industry. It is part of the creative process of a brewery@ says Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver, one of the most active brewers forging such zymological alliances.
Oliver probably started the craft beer collaboration trickle that has become a flood of new and unique beers. In the late 1990s Oliver traveled to England and brewed Brooklyn Bridge Bitter at the famous Brakspear Brewery in Henley-on-Thames. Oliver says his efforts to find an earlier craft collaboration have been unsuccessful thus far. Why do breweries collabeerate? Stone Brewing CEO Greg Koch believes that AWe live the brewer=s art. Collaboration helps express and advance that. It infuses spirit, passion and knowledge.@ Oliver experientially adds AIt changed my way of thinking. I became much more creative. It keeps us on our toes and adds spark.@
The most popular collaborations involve two or three brewers, usually at one of the participating breweries which then supplies the ingredients and facilities, arranges for label approval if the beer is bottled, and sells it through that brewery=s distributors. As part of the innovation, these beers often have new and interesting ingredients. Some recent additions include curry, tamarind, turbinado raw sugar, chia (as in Chia Pet), roses, and Tasmanian pepperberries.
Often such collaborations are between a U.S. and foreign brewery. One unusual collaboration involves Boston Beer, makers of the Samuel Adams brand, and Weihenstephan, the oldest brewery in the world and one of two German brewing academies. Jim Koch, the Boston Beer president, inquisitively asked the head of Weihenstephan AWhy do you, of all people, need us?@ The reply was simply AWe are not good at innovating and you are the best innovator.@ The result of this synergy will be a new style beer brewed within the German Reinheitsgebot beer purity law. This yet-unnamed projected high alcohol, champagne-like beer will be available in mid-2010.
These alliances are basically a win-win situation for all concerned. American brewers serve as craft beer ambassadors while enhancing their resumes and getting to brew with foreign brethren of great renown and broad experience. American brewers are learning more about the precision of European brewing, European methods, and making delicious low alcohol beersThe foreign brewers appreciate the creativity of American brewers and the ability to expand their own brewing horizons. Moreover, the brewers often brew something they have never brewed before and have a great deal of fun while learning in the process. As Greg Koch says AWe get to brew something we would not brew ourselves.@
Examples of these abound. The celebrated creator of the Double IPA-style, Vinnie Cilurzo=s favorite collaboration involved Agostino Arioli, founder of Birrifcio Italiano, who came to the Santa Rosa, CA brewery and created La Fleurette with Cilurzo using turbinado raw sugar, orange blossom honey and black pepper, dry hopping with roses and violets and adding elderberry concentrate. Cilurzo said Ait reminded me not to forget my roots@ and that Ayou can brew a beer that=s so full of flavor but only has 4.5 percent ABV.@
Stone Brewing=s brewmaster Mitch Steele, heading Koch=s passion for collaboration, has joined forces in threesomes with Mikkel Bjergso of Denmark=s Mikkeller Brewing and Peter Zien of Alesmith in California (Belgian Style Triple Ale); Kjetil Jikium of Norway=s Nogne-O and Ron Jeffries of Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales in Michigan (Special Holiday Ale); and James Watt of Scotland=s BrewDog together with Cambridge Brewing=s Will Meyers (Juxtaposition Black Pilsner).
Steve Pauwels, the Belgian-born brewer of Kansas City=s Boulevard Brewing, invited his friend and mentor, the legendary head brewer of Orval, Jean-Marie Rock, to collaborate. Pauwels says it was Alike having an auditor come in@ to Boulevard. They created Imperial Pilsner by resurrecting a brewing technique from decades earlier in Rock=s career, first wort hopping in which hops are added at the very beginning of the boil, a technique no longer used in Belgium. Imperial Pilsner was Abalanced with subtle hop crispness@ according to Pauwels who now is using first wort hopping in other beers.
Dogfish Head owner Sam Calagione started collaborating with the Herold Brewery in Prague, brewing an Imperial Pilsner called Golden Revolution based on Dogfish=s Golden Shower, and bringing imperialization to the land that gave us the pilsner style. Caligione later brewed a Danish Sour Gruit ale based on a 15th century recipe with Anders Kissmeyer from Norrebro Bryghus Brewery in Copenhagen, using smoked dark syrup, fir branches and bark, wood sage, hyssop, blackthorn berries, woodruff, and star spice. Calagione also brewed another Imperial Pilsner, My Antonia (named after a Willa Cather novel), at Birra del Borgo outside Rome, Italy with owner/brewer Leonardo DiVencenzo in October of 2008 with DiVencenzo returning the favor to brew Namaste in June, 2009. Mi Antonia is now on the regular brewing schedule for Dogfish for April and November releases.
A unique, recently announced collaboration brewpub venture in New York involves Caligione, Russian River Brewing=s Vinnie Cilurzo, DiVencenzo and another Italian brewer, Teo Musso, of Birrificio Le Baladin, as well as Italian chefs from New York and the artisinal Italian market Eataly. The four brewers are working together on recipes for the Eatalys house beers featuring Italian and American ingredients and will also occasionally brew beers under their own names onsite.
Dogfish, Stone Brewing and Victory Brewing recently announced a collaboration called Saison du BUFF (Brewers United for Freedom of Flavor). It will first be brewed at Stone and then replicated at each of the other two breweries with the same recipe and ingredients. Plans call for Saison du BUFF to be a 6% alc/vol Saison brewed with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Obviously the breweries are fans of Simon and Garfunkel. The expected release dates for each brew are: Stone Brewing Co.- 5/3/2010, Victory Brewing-July, 2010, and Dogfish Head-August, 2010.
Perhaps Oliver=s most famous collaboration was based on his decade-long friendship with Hans-Peter Drexler of Munich=s G. Schneider and Sohn, the originator of the weissbier. The widely-distributed American and German Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen Weisse was a hoppy weissbock, brewed in Munich with German ingredients and in Brooklyn with American hops and malt. Both were available in the U.S. for comparison. Oliver introduced several American brewing ideas to Germany, including dry-hopping, to the beer which was the first un-decocted beer brewed at Schneider. The elder Georg Schneider loved the aggressively hopped beer so much he wanted to start an experimental section in the brewery.
Collaborations also are starting to include non-brewers. For the last few years the Firestone Walker anniversary beer has been created by bringing in local winemakers to blend beers from several vats to create the taste they want. In 2007, Flying Dog brewed Collaborator Doppelbock by posting a recipe online and getting input from its customers and making many changes. Widmer regularly brews beers proposed by homebrew members of the Oregon Brew Crew. Brooklyn Brewery has gone far afield, involving chefs, bakers, and even a mixologist who helped create a beer called Manhattan that, according to Oliver, tasted "...just like the cocktail" of the same name.