Perusing the local boozemonger's shelves and coolers, I ran across something new (at least new to me) by the wonderful folks at Dogfish Head. I was first turned on to Dogfish Head beers by my cousin Alex, who introduced me to my first IPA: Dogfish Head 120-Minute and it was love at first sip. Despite everything I've had by DFH being somewhere in the range of good to great, I was fairly skeptical at any single beer being a "reason for being" (those two years of French in high school finally paid off!).
Anyway, I bought the six pack and was on my merry way home to relax with a brew or six. The pour was nothing spectacular: a deep brown color with a half inch of head topping it off. To me, the head was a bit light in color when compared to the look of the beer, but I won't take any points off for that.
Soon enough, I found out that the clever folks at Dogfish Head were having some fun with words as the single most prevalent scent to this beer was...wait for it...RAISINS! I got giddy for a few moments as I absolutely love me some raisin.
After calming down, I was able to sample the beer in hopes of some raisiny goodness that my nose had promised me. The first thing that my mouth noticed was an abundance of bubbles that died off before too long. It was unexpected, but not altogether unwelcome. Taste wise, there were definately raisins there and I noticed some oaky notes. That, along with a smooth mouthfel reminded me of some wines that I have had in the past.
As far as the finish goes, this is were this beer falls a bit short. The above average alcohol content (8.0%) rears its head a bit to readily and clashes slightly with the wonderful flavors going on in the initial taste.
The verdict? This is an amazing beer. Raisins and beer: two great tastes that taste great together, to borrow a phrase.
Dogfish Head wins again with their Raison D'Etre, it gets a 4.5/5 on my score sheet, only losing points for the not so subtle paly on words with the title and the slightly strong bite.
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