Dogfish Head Beer for Breakfast
20 years ago when Sam was first cooking up ideas for brews (literally) for his soon to be brewpub, one of the first concoctions tested and implemented was Chicory Stout, a breakfast-themed beer with Mexican Coffee, Chicory, and Licorice root. 20 years later, we’ve brewed a supped up mac-daddy version of this OG Dogfish brew to commemorate the anniversary of Chicory, aptly named Beer for Breakfast. We took the original Chicory recipe, doubled the grain bill to hit 10% ABV, and tricked it out with all other sorts of delicious Breakfast-minded ingredients including lactose sugar (the sugar that lends Milk Stouts their character); barley malt smoked over local Fifer Orchards wood; maple syrup harvested from trees at Northfield Mount Hermon, the Western Massachusetts school where Sam and wife Mariah met; Steve’s Smokey Double Dark roast coffee from J & S Bean Factory in St. Paul Minnesota (a special nod to one of Sam’s favorite bands – The Replacements, who hail from Minnesota and wrote one of Sam’s most beloved songs: Beer for Breakfast); and for the quintessential Delaware breakfast touch – 25 pounds of Rapa Scrapple, which was added to the mash. Huge notes of coffee in the nose give way to sweet, smokey, and savory layers in the flavor which overlap bittersweet chocolate, roasty espresso, and malty undertones. We don’t have much of this one, so come and get it while it lasts!
3.7
271 reviews
Milton, United States
Community reviews
Bottle. Pours a very dark brown color with a thick finger of creamy brown head. Wonderful aroma of roast, espresso, dark chocolate, and maple syrup. Deep flavors of dark chocolate and espresso, plenty of roast, accents of maple syrup, and a light smoky finish. Decadent layers of flavor. One of the best DFH beers that I’ve had in a very long time.
12 oz bottle. Pours nearly black in color with light mahogany at the edges and topped by a thick layer of tan colored foam that settles in slowly to a thin film and leaves patches of lace around the glass. The aroma is nice showing notes of smooth milk chocolate, roasted coffee, some maple syrup sweetness, and smokey, meaty bacon note. As it warms the smoked malts and smoky scrapple really start to shine. The flavor follows and shows the earthy, roasty coffee and milk chocolate up front followed by ample amounts of smoke from the smoked malts and meaty scrapple. After it warms up the smokey elements really outshine anything else with roasted, smokey malts and meaty bacon notes with just a hint of maple syrup sweetness on the back end. Nearly full bodied and smooth with balanced carbonation that leads to a milk chocolate, roasted coffee, and smokey finish. I was surprised how much I liked this one, but was just a touch too smokey for me to enjoy more than one. Still a solid breakfast stout.
Smooth and creamy, but finish lightens up quickly. Taste has quite a bit of licorice and is less chocolatey, which diverges from traditional stouts. Definitely different, but not my favorite stout.
Draft at Elijah Ps. Black and rich looking. Tan head. I expected big coffee ftom the name but only a little isevident. Much more earth, tobacco, and smoke. Lactose anda hint of maple. It kees the drinker guessing.
Really outstanding imperial stout. Excellent balance. Body, aroma and finish.
Smoky and sweet, with a definite scrapple flourish clinging to the fade. Surprisingly drinkable for pork beer, however, with the smoked malts and maple syrup adding layers without piling on any unnecessary sweetness. Chocolate and java and smoked meat, all in a bottle. Weird. But not bad.
Great smokey and hickory flavor. More of a drinkable stout instead of a one-time-taster or forcing a wow factor.
Reviewed - A Brew With You, Ep. 78
Very light smell of roasted malt...taste is same but with medium malty sweetness..smooth...very light smokiness...maybe...very very dark...some pepperyness...decent...at flying saucer for new employee happy hour
Highly carbed and weird for your pleasure. Sweet and kind of slimy, probably thanks to the scrapple. It was actually stuck to my tongue. Fun, but one was enough.
Bottle dark brown black coarse tan head. Mellow chocolatey roast aromas and flavors. Chocolate milk and bitter cocoa. Unfiltered feel. Nice mellow stout
Kinda gimmicky... I can taste the coffee and perhaps some syrup sweetness, but not really any scrapple - perhaps a bit of salty flavor? It is an interesting and complex beer, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn’t trying to pull out the weird ingredients.
Appearance: near solid black with the merest hint of brown relief around the edges, three fingers of rocky beige head on an enthusiastic pour, good retention and lacing. (4/5) Aroma: coffee, spices, milk chocolate, maple syrup, light metallic. (7/10) Taste: moderate sweet, moderate-high bitter. (7/10) Palate: medium-full slightly oily body, moderate-soft carbonation, lingering bitter finish. (4/5)
I’m certainly getting the coffee, spices, and maple syrup, but I can’t say I’m detecting any scrapple. Mind you, I’ve never had scrapple, so I’m not sure I could identify it to save my life. I’m not getting any savoury or umami notes, put it that way. The coffee is pleasant enough on the front end, but ultimately ends up feeling a little overextracted, contributing a little metallic harshness to the finish. On the other hand, now I want to stay at DFH’s Inn and order scrapple and beer for breakfast. (15/20)
7.5/10 #ryansbooze ryansbooze.com
Pours dark brown decent producing head. Aromas of light smoke, slight coffee, caramel and chocolate. Flavors chocolate, caramel, smoke, wood and coffee. Medium sweet light bitter finish. Full bodied rich and a slow drinker. Pretty good.
Pours opaque black with a tight, 1-finger dark tan head. Aroma is strongly of coffee, with some spice notes underneath. Full body, lightly oily. Mild astringency to the finish. Flavor of coffee, with some sweetness from the maple syrup. The spices from the scrapple show underneath as it warms, and linger at the back.
Dark brown color with brown foam. Aroma has intense malt notes, slightly smoked with some spice notes like nutmeg and light cinnamon. Taste is sweet at first, malty with a hint of sugar, quite roasty on the finish with a light to medium bitterness. Medium to light body, medium to low carbonation. Overall it’s a decent, easy drinking stout.
12 oz. bottle. Pours a large, well retained, beige head, with Belgian curtain lacing, over a clear, dark black brown (SRM 35) body....nose is coffee, chocolate, hints of smoke, molasses, brown sugar, no hops.....taste is coffee, chocolate, light smoke, lactose, raisin, light spice hints, finishing mildly roasted malt hop bitter.......mouth feel, medium light body, light alcohol, moderate carbonation. The multiple ingredients make for a beer with complex aromas and flavors, but the overall effect is a slightly muddled beer. BJCP 8/3/14/4/7
From tap. Pours pitch black with a small brown head. Aroma is roasted malty, slight breadish. Sweet, caramelish and toasted malty. Bitter. Roasted and dry malty. Caramelish and chocolate finish.
Opaque black color with a light brown head of short-loved creamy foam. Bold, fresh, medium roast coffee, smooth, sweet, and woody maple syrup, creamy lactose at the core, and velvety texture of oatmeal.
Tasting at Matt’s
Dark brown color with no head. Nice aroma of dark malts and chocolate, hints of smoke. Decent Stout flavor, some chilies and chocolate character, some rum, some smoke.
I thought I would not drink this one… but it’s not bad at all.
Black pour with tan head. Aroma is large espresso and roasted malt. Flavor is very coffee and anise with a touch of vanilla. Full bodied with smooth carbonation. solid beer all round
Bottle. Pours pitch black with a small creamy lacy tan head. Aroma of coffee, smoke and chocolate. Flavor of roasted malts, coffee, smoked meats, chocolate and had a touch of maple sweetness.
Bottle. The look is a slight tan head, dark, black in color. The smell is smoke, licorice, too sweet, malt, sausage, honey, and florals. The taste is malt, roast, drier, sweet, and meat. Tone down the licorice and sweetness and it could be much better.
11/20/16. On tap at Craft on Draft. Almost black pour under a small tan head. SMELLS LIKE SCRAPPLE. Just kidding, not really. A wisp of smoke and chicory, mainly coffee, some chocolates and caramel. Okay flavor, a touch of smoke, chicory, coffee, a savory aspect. Not bad, just wished for more body and heft if it were truly "imperial chicory."
Super solid, super well made beer. Was expecting regular stout, nothing special. It is special, it will not blow your mind, but the quality of the beer should make you adore it.
Bottle. Moderate roasted grain, chocolate and coffee for the malt, faint herbs for the hops, light dough for the yeast, and a hint of tobacco in the background. Head is small, frothy, light brown, with some slippery lacing and good legs, and is mostly diminishing. Color is very dark brown. Flavor starts lightly sweet and lightly to moderately acidic, then finishes lightly acidic and bitter. Palate is on the fuller side of medium, slick, with a lively carbonation and a drying finish. Very nice Stout from Dogfish Head. Finally, a new creation from them that stand up to their earlier stuff.
Bottle - From Dogfish Head Brewery - Pours pitch with a great chocolate head. Very coffee and chocolate with a malty fullness filling in the body of the beer. Lovely!
The aroma has Chicory coffee cigarettes and hops. The appearance is black. The taste is like the aroma. The palate is smooth. Overall good.
It's coffee and tobacco. High chickory flavor. Looks great with lots of spices. But the smoke is overwhelming that can distract
Draft to taster at Cappy’s pour opaque black with moderate mocha head. Nose sweet malt, red fruit, syrup, light chocolate. Taste starts sweet, lactose, then hint of smoked malt. Some coffee and milk chocolate later. Darn, I can’t taste the scrapple.
It's drinkable and preferable to a bland beer, it falls short of anything I'd call good.