Ken Status, World Wide Stout and Mr. Scratchy

When we learned that Dogfish Head was hosting Frisco Tap House’s pint night, we were very excited. First, Dogfish Head makes some delicious craft brews, including their 18% beers: 120 Minute IPA and World Wide Stout. Doubling the excitement, one of our group would reach “Ken Status” that night by drinking his 200th unique beer at Frisco. To honor this momentous night, we would all don our “treasured” Frisco T-shirts. I looked forward to putting on my special Mug Club shirt, Mr. Scratchy.

Mug Club

Like all of the group, I earned my shirt after

drinking 50 unique beers. When I first earned the shirt, I found it incredibly scratchy. After about ten washings, it is much more comfortable, but the name remains. At 100 beers, one achieves “Mug Club Status” where pint beers magically turn into mugs and gain an additional 4 ounces of your favorite ale. Note: 10-ounce pours, mostly high ABV beers, will not become mug pours. The final achievement in the Mug Club is Ken Status, which we celebrated that night.

The Beers

Our party of fifteen sat in the back near the big fish tank at Frisco. The Dogfish Head rep visited the table and handed out goodies: bottle openers and koozies. He asked us what we were drinking. We raved about the World Wide Stout, the 120 Minute IPA and the Palo Santo Marrah. We learned that the 120 Minute IPA was only about 16.5% ABV this year, that the Palo Santo Marrah is a brown ale aged in Paraguayan Palo Santo wood vessels, and the Sick Cider is made from 5 varieties of apples, wild brett yeast and aged in red wine barrels for a year. Also, the Alternate Takes #3 is a Double IPA made with massive amounts of dry hops and “burst-hops” (whatever that is). The #3 was a hit. It smells amazing and tastes of juicy hops.

We wrapped up the evening toasting our latest Ken Status achiever, while he drank a 120 Minute IPA. He insisted we call him Lord Kensington for the rest of the evening. It was a fun time. It looks like Mr. Scratchy and the rest of the Mug Club T-shirts will go back in their drawers for a few months. We look forward to two of our group reaching Mug Club status in the next few months.

Cheers,

Warren