It’s easy to get distracted by the double entendre and Gonzo-style of business that Flying Dog Brewery is so exceptional at. If your eyebrow didn’t rise the first time you heard Raging Bitch, Horn Dog and Pearl Necklace as names of their beers you probably just didn’t get it.
The Fredrick, MD. brewery has always made decisions on their own accord—some that many might believe to be at the very least ‘edgy’—but the brewery has never wavered from making exceptional beer and entertaining all of us who ‘get it.’ In a craft beer culture where extremes have almost become passé, Flying Dog has found a way to be ever-fashionable.
For their latest dose of unconventional craft brewing, Flying Dog has changed the recipe of one of their flagship beers, Doggie Style Classic Pale Ale.
Here’s what the brewery had to say in their blog post “Doggie Style: Slight Shift in Position.”
There is a natural evolution of craft beer styles and of the palates of craft beer drinkers that we’ve all seen as the industry continues to grow. That, combined with new hop varietals available to us, sparked an internal desire to allow Doggie Style to also evolve. Here’s what we changed specifically:
- Dialed back the caramel malt by 40%
- Increased the whirlpool addition of Cascade hops from 8.5 to 20 pounds
- Added Simcoe and Citra dry hop additions to the existing Cascade dry hop, while increasing the total dry hop by 14 pounds
Now before you take to your blog claiming sacrilege, consider it as possibly just the latest move from a small company that has made some pretty ballsy moves before that worked out really well. They’re used to this kind of stuff. I look forward to some new Doggie Style. It’s not easy to mess with a classic, but it’s not like you can’t teach an old doggie style new tricks.
Andy Sparhawk, the Brewers Association’s Craft Beer Program Coordinator, is a Certified Cicerone® and BJCP Beer Judge. He lives in Arvada, Colorado where he is a homebrewer and avid craft beer enthusiast. On occasion, Andy is inspired to write on his experiences with craft beer, and if they are not too ridiculous, you might see the results here on CraftBeer.com.
CraftBeer.com is fully dedicated to small and independent U.S. breweries. We are published by the Brewers Association, the not-for-profit trade group dedicated to promoting and protecting America’s small and independent craft brewers. Stories and opinions shared on CraftBeer.com do not imply endorsement by or positions taken by the Brewers Association or its members.
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