Dogfish Head on the Telly
Tuesday May 22, 2007
I was excited to see that Dogfish Head was going to be featured on "Taste of America with Mark DeCarlo" on the Travel Channel last night. Having never seen the show I really didn't know what to expect but I was sure that viewers would be shown some of the famous aspects of the much loved extreme beer brewer. I was looking forward to a peek at Sir Hops Alot, an invention of the brewery designed to continuously add hops to a boil, and personally I wanted to see all of those raisins being dumped in the brew for Raison D'Etre.But that wasn't to be the case.
The show is sliced into three segments so after commercials and the 30 minute show's introduction that must leave about 6 minutes per segment. Dogfish’s 6 minutes was doled out this way: First, they spent about a 30 seconds dwelling on the fact that Delaware, where Dogfish is located, was the first state in the Union but the last to appear on the series. Then they devoted at least two minutes to a horribly embarrassing history of beer that completely glossed over any truth or relevance with a continual parade of belching cartoon characters. Oh, how funny! We're talking about beer and our little cartoon kegs and cartoon George Washington are belching! Get it? Beer can make you belch! Oh, ho ho!
Finally, mercifully, the show moved on to a tour of the brewery itself. But given how much time in the segment had already been devoted to burping, they only had about a minute to blast through the brewery. This is the mash, this is the boil, and Voila! we have beer. Then one, ever so brief shot of Sir Hops Alot and they were off to taste the beer.
I'm all about pairing beer with food. And I'll ever forgive the goofy host of this show for acting a little surprised that it happens “just like . . . with wine.” But nothing makes for bad TV like watching a guy taste a beer, say Mmmm, then taste another. Why were these beers paired with that food? How can the viewers do this with their next meal? But there was no time to discuss such things because there were only a few seconds to spare in Dogfish's segment and those had to be devoted to the host pretending to be drunk and making loud, clichéd jokes.
I suppose that I really shouldn't have been surprised. With beer's reputation and television producers presumptions about the attention span of their viewers how could I have expected anything more than silly clowning when beer comes up. Much like mainstream journalists that have to begin every story concerning beer with tired jokes referencing the kegger mentality; it’s just easy to play up the old clichés.
But I'm still frustrated because beer drinkers have really grown up over the last ten or so years. As the megabrewers scramble against flat and declining sales numbers to rebrand, repackage and resell the same watery beers that they depended on for years, craft beers have enjoyed steady market gains. People are drinking better beer.
And craft brewers are passionate about their product. During the segment where the host was tasting beers he told the Dogfish representative that he was the most knowledgeable person that he’d ever talked to for the show. Not that they let any of that knowledge on the air; no, they had to reserve precious air time for belching cartoon characters.
I guess I’m just going to have to get my own show.
The show is sliced into three segments so after commercials and the 30 minute show's introduction that must leave about 6 minutes per segment. Dogfish’s 6 minutes was doled out this way: First, they spent about a 30 seconds dwelling on the fact that Delaware, where Dogfish is located, was the first state in the Union but the last to appear on the series. Then they devoted at least two minutes to a horribly embarrassing history of beer that completely glossed over any truth or relevance with a continual parade of belching cartoon characters. Oh, how funny! We're talking about beer and our little cartoon kegs and cartoon George Washington are belching! Get it? Beer can make you belch! Oh, ho ho!
Finally, mercifully, the show moved on to a tour of the brewery itself. But given how much time in the segment had already been devoted to burping, they only had about a minute to blast through the brewery. This is the mash, this is the boil, and Voila! we have beer. Then one, ever so brief shot of Sir Hops Alot and they were off to taste the beer.
I'm all about pairing beer with food. And I'll ever forgive the goofy host of this show for acting a little surprised that it happens “just like . . . with wine.” But nothing makes for bad TV like watching a guy taste a beer, say Mmmm, then taste another. Why were these beers paired with that food? How can the viewers do this with their next meal? But there was no time to discuss such things because there were only a few seconds to spare in Dogfish's segment and those had to be devoted to the host pretending to be drunk and making loud, clichéd jokes.
I suppose that I really shouldn't have been surprised. With beer's reputation and television producers presumptions about the attention span of their viewers how could I have expected anything more than silly clowning when beer comes up. Much like mainstream journalists that have to begin every story concerning beer with tired jokes referencing the kegger mentality; it’s just easy to play up the old clichés.
But I'm still frustrated because beer drinkers have really grown up over the last ten or so years. As the megabrewers scramble against flat and declining sales numbers to rebrand, repackage and resell the same watery beers that they depended on for years, craft beers have enjoyed steady market gains. People are drinking better beer.
And craft brewers are passionate about their product. During the segment where the host was tasting beers he told the Dogfish representative that he was the most knowledgeable person that he’d ever talked to for the show. Not that they let any of that knowledge on the air; no, they had to reserve precious air time for belching cartoon characters.
I guess I’m just going to have to get my own show.
Comments
I didn’t see the episode, but from your description it’s clear I would have had the very same reaction you did, I’m sure. You’re right – we probably shouldn’t be surprised when we see all things beer-related handled in an impudent manner. It’s unfortunate, though, that the show’s producers didn’t take the opportunity to dispell some common myths about beer instead of reinforcing the common stereotypes. Dogfish Head was certainly ill-served on this one, but I guess maybe there is something to be said for “all press is good press,” huh? Perhaps some burping, macro beer swilling dude in Delaware saw the show while sitting in his cheeto-infested recliner and thought “Huh, never tried that kind of beer. Maybe I’ll stop by.” He’ll be in for the real beer education he didn’t get on the “Taste of America” show.