Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
Milton, DE
URKontinent Belgian-style Dubbel
8.0% ABV
Dogfish Head keeps cranking them out, I keep drinking them up.
URKontinent is a collaboration between Dogfish and, of all people, Google, who set up a forum of sorts on their website to crowdsource ingredients to brew with. What they came up with was wattleseed from Australia; toasted amaranth, an herb from South America; green rooibos tea from Africa; myrcia gale, a flowering plant from Europe; and honey from Google’s own farms in California. It’s kind of like Pangaea – sans Antarctic water – insofar as it’s a worldly beer, and fitting for two worldly companies.
The beer pours a s lightly hazy deep brown color, kind of a murky dank-looking color. There’s a finger of head that’s gone pretty quickly, leaving behind a nice film of small bubbles. Good lacing and decent alcohol legs as well.
The smell is a class dubbel. Those big sweet plum and fig notes are really present on the nose. There are bits of coffee notes and chocolate as well. There’s a sweetness from the honey, a slight bread note and a little bit of an herbal touch as well. Interesting slight twist for a dubbel
Toward the front and middle of the mouth, it’s a classic dubbel. You get those big sweet fig, raisin and plum notes that linger nicely. But on the back end, there’s this big burst of herbs and honey. The herbal notes really shine through on the back as well. The rooibos really gives it a tea taste.
While Dogfish has the expected laundry list of ingredients, they don’t do anything too crazy with this one, much like they did with Positive Contact. They could go make something crazy and over the top, but instead they find ingredients that work well with the base style and add subtle little touches that make it really enjoyable and tasty.
