Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

Today I want to take a look at one of our favorite day activities (other than the obvious beach time!) when we’re at the Delaware Shore. This will be the first in a series of posts I’m planning on some of our favorites from the Shore.

Although I spend most of my time in Baltimore, I really do consider the Delaware Seashore to be my second home, and in our two years of regular, year round visits we’ve discovered a lot of hidden “gems” that I think other travelers looking for something slightly off the beaten path may appreciate! So read on to find a little bit more about the little brewery that made our piece of Coastal Delaware famous.

Most craft beer afficinados probably have heard the story of Dogfish Head Beer and its founder, Sam Calagione. Dogfish is now one of the most popular and largest craft breweries in the country, and it all started with one brew pub in Downtown Rehoboth Beach. Many tourists coming to Rehoboth eat a meal at the Brew Pub and enjoy their extensive selection of Dogfish Brews, but they miss one of the best things about the company, visiting their brewery in nearby Milton and taking the free tour and enjoying the free samples!

The Dogfish Head Brewery is located in downtown Milton about 20 minutes from the Route 1 Coridor in Rehoboth. Dogfish is pretty much the biggest thing in Milton, which is a small, but charming, former shipbuilding town. The brewery is very easy to find (it is a SMALL town!) and is open Tuesday through Saturday from Noon to 5. I always recommend that folks reserve a time and date for their tour, especially if they want to go on Saturdays during the off season (November-April) or any day of the week during the summer. The tours fill up fast for these busy times, so reserve early!

The Dogfish tours are interesting because you do actually get to see the real working brew house and the vats where they age their beer. The tour includes stories about the founding of Dogfish Head, what makes their beer unique, and their approach to brewing off centered and experimental beers. You are in the working brewhouse, so be ready with closed toed shoes (or wear a set of their crocs) and get set to wear goggles. Also, in the summertime, know that it gets quite HOT in the brew room!

I’ll admit that the tours have gotten less interesting over time. My first Dogfish Tour was in 2008, when the tours were still operating out of a section of the brewery’s warehouse. In those days the tours still included a stop on the bottling line and more time on the actual tour and in the actual brewery. Now the tours are much quicker, and on our last visit to the Brewery in February 2012, it looks like much of the speech/background part of the tour is actually done in the tasting room. But that’s okay, because it’s still fun to do!

After the tour, the real fun starts! Time for the tastings! At the beginning of every Dogfish tour you get four “sharks”–green cardboard cutouts shaped like the company’s logo–each one good for a sample of beer. Beer sampling is serious business at Dogfish, and unlike many breweries or wineries, you don’t just sample the brand’s flagship brews. I don’t think I’ve ever been into the tasting room and had the same selection of tastings twice! Normally you can expect to have one signature beer, one anient ale, the current seasonal, and something else, but a lot of times there are more seasonals or ancient ales available. The fun part is, it’s always something different.

But one of the best kept secrets about Dogfish? If you can’t get on a tour because they’re full or you don’t have time/interest in doing the full tour experience, you can still stop into the tasting room for four free beer samples! This little secret is the reason I’ve been to Dogfish Head so many times–that and it’s the closest place to buy beer to our house AND there’s no bottle deposit at the brewery, but I digress. Stop in, check out the current beer selection and the Dogfish gear shop and enjoy your samples of beer. Tell them we sent you!

And of course, if you need someone to taste with you on any given weekend, drop me a line!

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