The first night of the Great American Beer Fest was a blast! The line of happy beer lovers at our booth just before the first session started was just the beginning.

Getting GABF started!

When I wrote the business plan to open Dogfish Head in 1994, I wrote about the off-centered approach we would take to brewing and that we would explore the full breadth of potential culinary ingredients in our brewing recipes.  It was hard for us selling these beer in the mid and late 90's as there wasn't any real market for beers outside of recognizable stylistic context. 

Now it's a different story.  We sell hundreds of thousands if cases of culinary-centric beers like Midas Touch and Raison D'etre. The most popular beers at our booth last night were

1) Choc Lobster (first keg to kick) brewed with Akinosie chocolate nibs, roasted barley and 40 Maine lobsters thrown into the boil. 

 2) Noble Rot: a sort of Saison brewed with 49 percent fermentable sugars coming from botrytis infected Viognier grapes and Pinot Gris.

3) Hot Thoup! A pale ale fermented with carrot juice and ginger served warm at 80 degrees through a Randall packed with carrots and cilantro.

It was so much fun for me and my co-workers to serve these beers last night and see how excited and adventurous beer drinkers have become. To borrow a line from Mos Def: LIFE IN MARVELOUS TIMES.