Beers and Balloons

Beer #309 60 Minute IPA / Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Milton, DE

And so ends another weekend, as Sunday slips quietly away and Monday looms around the corner, like a schoolyard bully.  I did get to enjoy some beautiful fall weather, and managed to get some shopping done - trip to Pinocchio's in Media resulted in another 14 beers for the blog.  You'll hear about them all soon enough, assuming I can find room for all of them in the fridge.  Which is becoming a challenge.

The beer of choice on this beautiful fall afternoon is the 60 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head Brewery.  This beer has a clear copper color with a lingering white head.  Your nose picks up a subtle pine aroma with some caramel sweetness, and the taste gives you a balance of hops and malt, with pine, lemon, and a hint of sweetness along with earthy, dry notes.  Dogfish has long been at the forefront of experimenting with unique ingredients, different brewing techniques, and unusual styles.  They've become one of the leaders in the world of craft beer, having won countless awards for their inventions.  This IPA may be the most "normal" beer they produce in their universe of spiced ales, fruit beers, and beers from ancient recipes.  Which is why it pains me to say that this is..... a good beer, but not the most spectacular IPA I've sampled this year.  Tasty, but nothing that would merit Top 25 conversation.  Yes, the 90 Minute and 120 Minute might have been better choices to sample, but I'll leave that for another day.

The always awesome pic from the phone

In case you were wondering, the name of this beer comes from the fact there are sixty additions of hops completed in a sixty minute boil.  Dogfish opened their doors in 1995 as a brewpub, and have since expanded their brewery operations to help meet an incredibly growing demand.

Thing to Think About Today:
I could make some cute reference to dogs or fish or whatever and tie in a movie clip or song or something entertaining.  But today, I'm not sure what else could entertain you quite like a man piloting a balloon (to be fair, more of a space craft than what you find at the county fair) to a height of 128,000 feet into the atmosphere (Your Southwest flight cruises at about 34,000 feet), opening the door, climbing onto a ledge, and then jumping out into the void.

Nine minutes of falling/parachuting later, Baumgartner and his Red Bull Stratos project team earned world records for the highest balloon flight and for being the first free-falling person to break the sound barrier.  I've been watching the this clip over and over again, mesmerized.  Partially at the genius it takes to orchestrate and engineer a feat like this, and partially at the courage it must take to lift yourself 24 miles above the earth, hoisted by a balloon that was thinner than a plastic sandwich bag.  I'm not sure how this will help advance science, but it will.  Things like this always do, and that is what makes them both amazing and awe inspiring.

You sir, have earned many, many beers.