I had a great time at the Dogfish beer dinner at Caf Gelato in Newark Sunday night. Ryan and everyone there pulled out all the stops... and 210 people joined Nick Vitalo and I for the dinner. We got to share hard-to-find Dogfish beers like Sah'tea and Red & White. We did a Q & A in all six of the dining rooms that were part of the dinner. One particular question was asked basically verbatim in four of the six rooms: Why is my local store out of 60 minute IPA?.

Well, we had a little challenge two weeks ago when our bottling line broke and put us a bit behind on packaging, but, looking at what we have sold through September year to date thats not the real challenge.

As I told the folks at the dinner this week, the real challenge is that demand for 60 Minute IPA is beyond our ability to supply. We know we are very lucky to have this sorta challenge, but its a challenge none-the-less.

What makes this challenge more ummmm, challenging, for retailers and distributors, is that not only are we unable to catch up with demand for 60 Minute IPA, we are uninterested in catching up with demand for 60 Minute IPA.

We love our IPAs and are very proud of how pungent and distinct they are due to our unique continual-hopping process. But, we are not interested in turning into the '60 Minute Brewing Company.'

We are right now finalalizing our 2011 budget. Next year we will make tens of thousands more cases of 60 Minute IPA than we did this year. 60 Minute sales will grow by a double digit percentage in every market we sell beer in. But, we are planning for beers like Indian Brown, Raison DEtre, Namaste, My Antonia, 90 Minute, Midas, Palo and our seasonals to grow by a bigger percentage than 60 Minute IPA.

The idea of being a varietal brewery that focuses as many resources and as much energy on celebrating beers that are released once a year as we do on beers we make every week is something that we are passionate about and committed to.

We hope you will support us on this off-centered path.

If you cant find 60 Minute IPA at your local store, ask them if they have another one of our beers that are available year round like Midas Touch or Indian Brown Ale... Or seek out one of our seasonals like Chicory Stout which will be hitting shelves & taps next month... Or one of our occasional beers like Bitches Brew (another batch of Bitches Brew is scheduled to go out in late November to coincide with the launch of the show Brew Masters on Discovery the first episode of which is all about our collaboration with Sony and Miles family on this beer). Imagine how boring jazz would be if musicians like Miles and Bird only played one note or one style even if that one note sounds awesome? Miles Davis once said Dont play whats there, play whats not there.

Please explore the colorful and diverse beers throughout our portfolio and those of your other favorite American craft breweriescheat on your go-to beer.