Beer Spotlight!

Spotlight on the Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA

$10.99 for the 12oz bottle.
Triple IPA

It’s crazy. It’s nuts. It’s ridiculous. Who would make this beer? Who would think that such an enterprise would be profitable? Well, Dogfish Head Brewing Company would … and did. Let us explain …

[Full Disclosure: We are not brewers, but we play them in our favorite roll-playing game Kegs & Kettles. ;) ]

From what we understand, when you brew, you add your hops at different discreet points in your process depending on whether you want to extract bitterness, flavor, or aroma from them. Once again, it’s as we said — discreet additions. It’s like when you’re making soup. You don’t just add in your salt, pepper, and spices all the time you’re cooking. Right? Right?

Well, in the 90s, Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione was watching a cooking show and saw the host/chef add pepper in small doses throughout his full soup preparation, claiming the continual peppering provided a deeper, more savory taste. Calagione thought, “Well, if that works for soup, then why not for beer?” So he rigged up a machine to steadily deliver hops throughout a 90 minute boil, criticalled his Dexterity Check, and Voilà! The 90 Minute IPA was born.

This beer is the 120 Minute IPA! That’s two hours of continual hopping a crap ton of malt! Plus, there’s some special yeast that continues to produce even as alcohol levels rise. Thus, Dogfish Head is able to bring this sucker in at somewhere around 18% ABV. (They used to go higher, but found the 18% level provided a better taste,)

Talking about the 120 Minute feels like being an astrophysicist talking about heavy gravity environments or near light speeds. Once you get up to this level of malt, hops, and alcohol, the normal rules of IPAs begin to fail to apply. First, there’s so much malt that the 120 Minute features a richness and deep sweetness that is not going to abated. All of those hops are so folded into this malt blanket that you, indeed, get strong, deep hop flavor but not a lot of bitterness. On top of it all, you can taste the burn of the alcohol the way you would with a distilled spirit.

Dogfish Head used to call this beer a Double IPA. Now they call it a Triple IPA. To be honest, we’re just playing Beer Semantics at this point. They could easily call the 120 Minute a barleywine if they wanted, and no one would complain. Like a barleywine, you’re invited to age the 120 Minute for up to two years at least to see how the flavors change. (Spoiler: It’s great. Among other things, it becomes more sherry-like.)

However you slice it, it’s amazing. It’s grand. It’s one of the great American beers. Cool it down just a little and split a 12oz bottle with friend or loved one — or with someone whom you want to become a friend or a loved one. You’re welcome.