Red & White
Brewed By: Dogfish Head
Brewed In: Milton, DE
Type: Belgian Wit-style
ABV: 10.0%

What They Say: A big, belgian-style Wit brewed with coriander and orange peel and fermented with Pinot Noir juice. After fermentation a fraction of the batch is aged in Oregon Pinot Noir barrels, and another fraction is aged on oak staves. The beer is blended together before packaging.

This has been one of our most popular Limited Edition beers at both our Rehoboth Beach, DE brewpub and at festivals. It successfully marries the refreshing citrusy qualities of a Belgian-style white beer with the robust complexity of a bold red wine.

Website: Professionally designed site. Pretty standard layout. Pretty similar to the Pulse layout, really.

Why I Picked It: I generally love everything Dogfish Head does and have never had one of their 750 ml offerings. Tossed a coin between the Red & White and Black & Blue. Red & White won.

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Presentation (5): Standard, run of the mill 750 ml bottle with a sticker. Perfectly acceptable but nothing drawing extra points. 2

Originality (5): Dogfish Head is one of the breweries that tries to stay on the cutting edge. Their limited release, big-bottled series sticks with this. This beer is fermented with pinot noir and then aged in wine barrels. As far as I know, no one’s doing this yet and, if others are, they’re few and far between. 5

Body (10): Perfect thickness to coat your tongue but not too much that it sits in your mouth forever. Once you get past the general confusion of the flavor of wine floating around in something that feels like a beer, it’s good. 8

Taste (10): I wasn’t sure how I was going to deal with wine + lemony wheat beer but, surprisingly, it worked pretty well together. The sweet notes of the wine barrel hits you right at the beginning and it fades just in time for you to catch the aftertaste of the wheat beer. It’s very difficult to explain the flavor, but it does work. 8

Efficiency (10): They heavy flavor makes it not particularly good for drinking quickly, but the 10% ABV packs a punch. The nice thing about 10% ABVs is that you can occasionally feel them doing their work. Cost is a factor here, though — the 750 ml translates to about two beers at 10% ABV for $12. The ABV tries to make up for the cost but falls a wee bit short. 7

Versatility (10): The flavor and ABV makes this a beer that one would pair with a meal or have some night when the wife decides she wants to be a little nutty and drink TWO glasses of wine. It’s definitely not something for sitting around with friends or drinking anywhere but in your house. Way too strong to take with you to do anything. 2

Final Grade: 32 (of 50) – Good beer.

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