Beer O’clock — Dogfish Head Sah’tea

February 25th, 2011

This week’s beer tasters: Jay, Paul, Frank, David, and Stephen Every Friday at DesignHammer, we take time after a long day of designing cutting edge websites to sit down for a gourmet beer tasting. This week Frank selected Dogfish Head’s Sah’tea for us to sample. Sah’tea is a modern beer inspired by a 9th century Finnish proto-beer, released as part of the brewery’s Occasional Rarities—many released only
once a year.

“Brewed with rye, we caramelize the wort with white hot river rocks, then ferment it with a German Weizen yeast. In addition to juniper berries foraged directly from the Finnish country-side we added a sort of tea made with black tea, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and black pepper. The spicing is subtle and balanced and Sahtea is a highly-quaffable, truly-unique brew with a full-mouth feel.”

Dogfish Head brews a variety of interesting and unique beers in Milton, Delaware. They have been brewing since 1995 and were featured in the documentary Beer Wars. At the first sip, Jay labeled the Sah'tea, “Spicey.” A moment later, he amended that with, “Good choice, Frank.” After a few sips and some reflection David asked, “Can you taste the juniper berries?” “I’m sure I could, if I knew what juniper tastes like,” said Paul, after another sip. “Gin,” David replied. After which Paul responded with “Then I taste juniper berries.” “I taste chai, maybe more than juniper,” remarked Jay. DesignHammer frequents the Hope Valley Bottle Shop, a local specialty shop near DesignHammer’s world headquarters in southwest Durham. Check out their extensive selection of carefully chosen wine and beer. Tell them DesignHammer sent you.