Dogfish Head Golden Shower Imperial Pilsner
Reviewed by Shane Dickey
I’ve got an idea: let’s round up all the senior VPs and directors of marketing from all the profit drunk American megabreweries that purport to peddle pilsners, bind them, gag them, and truck them up to Dogfish Head-quarters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. For their edification, we’ll hide-strap them to barstools and force them to quaff a pint of D.F.H. Golden Shower Imperial Pilsner. (I know, I know! Why waste even one drop of this heaven-nectar on any Budweiser employee? Patience, good reader—patience!) After pouring them another (they’ll be begging for it by now after a lifetime of underflavored hogswill!), we’ll strip them to the ankles, give them a few good lashes with a wet bar towel, then slap down on the counter the fat manila envelope containing the explicit photographs we had taken of them and their various mistresses in compromising masochistic poses, all the while admonishing the hell out of them and saying tisk, tisk, tisk while rubbing our forefingers together and pissing on their faces, before casting them back, half-drunk, to their respective so-called breweries with sore asses, pillaged egos, and the promise that we’ll go to the press with the pics unless they see to it that the word pilsner is scratched off of every last bottle of horsepiss their factories churn out and the word beer forever eradicated from their lexicon.
I can’t help but think that the good folks at Dogfish Head had some sort of sordid scene in mind when they named their throwback pilsner. (Am I imagining things, or isn’t it usually the straight-laced Budweiser-peddling types who go for the really kinky homoerotic stuff?) Could D.F.H. brewmaster Andy Tveekrem have had in mind our using his dreamy golden concoction for this sort of forced evangelism? Who knows! Certainly the moniker ‘Golden Shower’ was intended to stir images of naughty excess even before cap one was popped.
Well, fantasies of busloads of humiliated Bud execs aside, pop a cap of the rare, seasonal D.F.H. Golden Shower is exactly what I did last Saturday afternoon. Being a committed pale ale aficionado, when a ten-spot is burning a hole in my pocket, it usually ends up going toward as strong and hoppy an IPA as I can find, but during my most recent trip to Belmont Party Supply , the Golden Shower had caught my eye and on the Saturday in question, I opted for it over the 750ml bottle of Stone Old Guardian (!) right next to it, mainly because I had windows to paint and hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast. Ho, ho but was I in for an awakening!
IPA lovers, here’s the pils for you. The naughty, naughty boys at D.F.H. run the Golden Shower through the same proprietary ‘continual-hopping’ process used for their award-winning Imperial IPAs which, in the opinion of this humble reviewer, are the gold standard for highly-hopped ales. Attempting to balance the hops and doing a more than adequate job is the full-bodied pilsner malt 100% direct-imported from the Continent. The net result of this happy marriage is a round, flavorful brew that pours like burnished brass from the brown bottle and settles like liquid gold with a satisfying splash in the glass while a medium-sudsy head rises up tantalizingly and, receding, leaves lingering an opaque white lace web. The mellow nose, mildly spicy on pouring, ripens as it rests, and is an understatement of the maltier flavor to follow. Prostrate on the couch, the paint drying in the can in the next room, I chewed through the 750ml, thinking as I replenished my glass how well the crispness and flavor of this—finally!—a real!—pilsner masked its 9% ABV. (Good thing I didn’t go for the Old Guardian! I’d never finish my work!)
Well, I came to at halftime and found myself confessing to my stocking-clad feet that I needed to get out more. Like back to Belmont Party Supply for another bottle of Dogfish Head Golden Shower. And to Home Depot for another can of paint.
____________________________________________________
Dogfish Head Golden Shower Imperial Pilsner
Availability: Seasonal (Purchased at Belmont Party Supply, 2621 S. Smithville Rd, Dayton, Ohio 45420)
ABV: 9%
ABU: 80
____________________________________________________
Appearance: 4.5 Smell: 3.5 Taste: 4.5 Mouthfeel: 4 Drinkability: 4
Overall Rating: 4.1
[ed note: This is the first in what I hope will become a series of posts for guest reviewers--KevBrews]
Reviewed by Shane Dickey
I’ve got an idea: let’s round up all the senior VPs and directors of marketing from all the profit drunk American megabreweries that purport to peddle pilsners, bind them, gag them, and truck them up to Dogfish Head-quarters in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. For their edification, we’ll hide-strap them to barstools and force them to quaff a pint of D.F.H. Golden Shower Imperial Pilsner. (I know, I know! Why waste even one drop of this heaven-nectar on any Budweiser employee? Patience, good reader—patience!) After pouring them another (they’ll be begging for it by now after a lifetime of underflavored hogswill!), we’ll strip them to the ankles, give them a few good lashes with a wet bar towel, then slap down on the counter the fat manila envelope containing the explicit photographs we had taken of them and their various mistresses in compromising masochistic poses, all the while admonishing the hell out of them and saying tisk, tisk, tisk while rubbing our forefingers together and pissing on their faces, before casting them back, half-drunk, to their respective so-called breweries with sore asses, pillaged egos, and the promise that we’ll go to the press with the pics unless they see to it that the word pilsner is scratched off of every last bottle of horsepiss their factories churn out and the word beer forever eradicated from their lexicon.
I can’t help but think that the good folks at Dogfish Head had some sort of sordid scene in mind when they named their throwback pilsner. (Am I imagining things, or isn’t it usually the straight-laced Budweiser-peddling types who go for the really kinky homoerotic stuff?) Could D.F.H. brewmaster Andy Tveekrem have had in mind our using his dreamy golden concoction for this sort of forced evangelism? Who knows! Certainly the moniker ‘Golden Shower’ was intended to stir images of naughty excess even before cap one was popped.
Well, fantasies of busloads of humiliated Bud execs aside, pop a cap of the rare, seasonal D.F.H. Golden Shower is exactly what I did last Saturday afternoon. Being a committed pale ale aficionado, when a ten-spot is burning a hole in my pocket, it usually ends up going toward as strong and hoppy an IPA as I can find, but during my most recent trip to Belmont Party Supply , the Golden Shower had caught my eye and on the Saturday in question, I opted for it over the 750ml bottle of Stone Old Guardian (!) right next to it, mainly because I had windows to paint and hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast. Ho, ho but was I in for an awakening!
IPA lovers, here’s the pils for you. The naughty, naughty boys at D.F.H. run the Golden Shower through the same proprietary ‘continual-hopping’ process used for their award-winning Imperial IPAs which, in the opinion of this humble reviewer, are the gold standard for highly-hopped ales. Attempting to balance the hops and doing a more than adequate job is the full-bodied pilsner malt 100% direct-imported from the Continent. The net result of this happy marriage is a round, flavorful brew that pours like burnished brass from the brown bottle and settles like liquid gold with a satisfying splash in the glass while a medium-sudsy head rises up tantalizingly and, receding, leaves lingering an opaque white lace web. The mellow nose, mildly spicy on pouring, ripens as it rests, and is an understatement of the maltier flavor to follow. Prostrate on the couch, the paint drying in the can in the next room, I chewed through the 750ml, thinking as I replenished my glass how well the crispness and flavor of this—finally!—a real!—pilsner masked its 9% ABV. (Good thing I didn’t go for the Old Guardian! I’d never finish my work!)
Well, I came to at halftime and found myself confessing to my stocking-clad feet that I needed to get out more. Like back to Belmont Party Supply for another bottle of Dogfish Head Golden Shower. And to Home Depot for another can of paint.
____________________________________________________
Dogfish Head Golden Shower Imperial Pilsner
Availability: Seasonal (Purchased at Belmont Party Supply, 2621 S. Smithville Rd, Dayton, Ohio 45420)
ABV: 9%
ABU: 80
____________________________________________________
Appearance: 4.5 Smell: 3.5 Taste: 4.5 Mouthfeel: 4 Drinkability: 4
Overall Rating: 4.1
[ed note: This is the first in what I hope will become a series of posts for guest reviewers--KevBrews]
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1 comment:
Sorry there shane, recently someone bought up the last golden shower. We have since replaced it with Dogfish Head Pangea! wh00t.
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