Dogfish Head Craft Brewery is getting ready for fall, ya’ll! Debuting in 1995 and now one of America’s best-selling pumpkin beers, Punkin Ale, a full-bodied brown ale, is now available on taps and shelves. Clocking in at 7% ABV, Punkin Ale is brewed with real pumpkin, brown sugar, allspice, nutmeg and cinnamon.
“We’ve been brewing Punkin Ale at Dogfish for over two decades, since long before there was a whole category of pumpkin beer, and have seen sales grow each and every year,” said Sam Calagione, CEO and founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. “I think it’s because the complexity and authenticity of the recipe has remained world-class since we first brewed it as it’s not made with pumpkin flavoring or concentrates – we use fresh all-natural ingredients and that makes a big difference.”
The story of Punkin Ale originally began in 1994 when it won first place in a baking contest at the World Championship Punkin Chunkin, a legendary fall event in coastal Delaware, where folks travel from around the world to see who can hurl a pumpkin the furthest. Twenty-two years ago, Calagione entered the competition with his first ever batch of Punkin Ale which was made (and is still made today) with real pumpkin meat, brown sugar and freshly crushed spices, and took home best in show for the homebrew beating out the homemade pumpkin pies, cookies and cakes. In fact, the name of the beer was inspired by the name of the Punkin Chunkin competition and it continues to be the best-selling seasonal beer released by Dogfish Head annually.
“Every fall, a week or so after Halloween, my wife Mariah and I will pop open a couple Punkin Ales and toast to the good karma that beer’s story has brought us,” said Calagione.
Another a-peel-ing, draft-only, September 1 release is Carobock, a Bavarian-style Weizenbock known for being rich and malty with notes of chocolate, bananas and toasted malt. Clocking in at 8% ABV, this ale is brewed with malted wheat, dark Munich malt and chocolate wheat and is fermented with traditional weizen yeast to boost the banana and spice notes that typify the style. The off-centered and ever-inventive brewers at Dogfish wanted Carobock to be a play on a delicious chocolate covered banana, so they selected toasted carob pods to provide intense, earthy chocolate flavors and rounded out the brew by aging it on Madagascar vanilla beans.
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