New Dogfish Head tours will lift your spirits

Experiencing Dogfish Head's distillery is like walking into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. You see huge copper pots, eyebrow-raising ingredients and good old-fashioned alchemy.

Of course, those 500-gallon copper stripping stills are named Candy and Trixie — a nod to the brewing company's humor. And the "scratch-made" spirits coming out of the distillery, from roasted peanut vodka to hopped gin, are as flavorful and nonconformist as a pint of Dogfish Head beer. 

This year, Dogfish Head ranked as the second best brewery tour in USA Today’s 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards contest by popular vote, beating out big names like Samuel Adams, Sierra Nevada, Great Lakes Brewing Co. and many others that didn’t make the cut.

“For beer lovers, grain to glass tours go into normally off-limits parts of the facilities, including cold storage, the grain handling room and the barrel-aging room,” the contest states.

And Chesapeake & Maine, one of Dogfish Head's Rehoboth Beach restaurants, created such noteworthy cocktails in its first year of being open that it received a James Beard semifinalist nod for best bar program in the country.

So it seemed fitting for the brewing company to announce a new line of distillery tours at its Milton brewery.

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"What we're doing in the distillery reflects exactly what we've been doing with the beer for over 20 years," off-centered experience ambassador Lars Ryan said. "It's a growing part of our business and we want people to know how we do it and what our approach is."

At $15 a pop, it's not the same as the free first-come first-served brewery tours. The hour-long jaunt starts in the brewhouse, where each spirit begins alongside the ales. Then it's over to the distillery, where a slew of science, jokes and history ensues. 

The distillery's inventiveness reflects the blurred culinary lines of the brewery.

The Compelling Gin is food-based, with lemon, orange, cardamom, peppercorn and a warm finish of cinnamon. And the Whole Leaf Gin is what Dogfish deems "the IPA of spirits," as hops are added to each step of distillation. 

"We're always exploring how we can make distilling interesting," Ryan said. "How can we take it from the more mundane to something more differentiated? ... You don't have to follow after what the conventional wisdom of the day is." 

And yes, samples are included, from the spirits portfolio to a seasonal keg-conditioned cocktail. Be sure to take the logo tasting glass home, too.

"We want to demystify the marketing trickery," Ryan added, referring to companies that use consumers' lack of knowledge of distillation to make their products appear more "handcrafted" and sought after. 

For example, when companies put "five times distilled" on their bottles, it's a fancy way of saying how many runs it takes to get the right proof.

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"It's a fallacy of the market," Ryan said during the tour. The number of runs through Trixie and Candy "doesn't matter" as long as you get the right proof, he said.

The tour is flecked with trivia, like where the term "proof" hails from. The entire session is set to a backdrop of machines whirring, forklifts beeping and distant voices bouncing off the vast rooms. 

Ryan acted as pop-up bartender, explaining the aromatic opening effect of the ice cubes he dropped into each glass. He encouraged folks to use their nose, digging into the flavor before the peppery burn reached their tongue, the back of their throat.

Ryan wrote the script on the distillery tour. Even when Dogfish was making small batch rums at the brewpub in the early 2000s, the distilling process always fascinated him.

He really does love Dogfish Head beer. But.

"I'm more of a spiritual person," he said. 

Dogfish Head's newest tours

Distilling Behind the Scenes Tour
Cost: $15 per person, includes samples and Dogfish Head tasting glass

Grain to Glass Tour
Cost: $30 per person, includes beer and cocktails, Dogfish Head pint glass and shot glass

Randall Jr. Exploration of Flavor
Cost: $30 per person, includes beer samples and a Randall Jr.

For all of Dogfish Head's tour offerings and to purchase tickets, visit https://dogfishheadbrewery.ticketleap.com/.