Dogfish Unveils Bitches Brew

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

For Immediate Release 6/5/2010

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Unveils Its 'Bitches Brew' - A newly created commemorative ale celebrating the 40th anniversary of Miles Davis' jazz-funk-rock-fusion masterpiece

Legacy Recordings 40th Anniverary Collector's Edition of Landmark 'Bitches Brew' Album Available Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Bitches Brew

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the original release of Bitches Brew, Miles Davis' 1970 paradigm-shifting landmark fusion breakthrough, Delaware's Dogfish Head Craft Brewery has created its own Bitches Brew - a bold, dark beer that's a fusion of three threads imperial stout and one thread honey beer with gesho root, a gustatory analog to Miles' masterpiece.

Featuring the album's iconic artwork, created by the late Mati Klarwein, on its label, Dogfish Head's Bitches Brew will be unveiled at SAVOR, An American Craft Beer & Food Experience, June 5, National Building Museum, Washington DC. Two 40th anniversary editions of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew -- a Legacy Edition and a deluxe Collector's Edition -- will be available Tuesday, August 31.

The newly created ale is designed, according to Dogfish founder and president Sam Calagione, "as the ultimate partner for chili or spicy curry chicken" and best enjoyed "sipped cool, not cold, from a snifter or red wine glass while listening to the Bitches Brew album."

Calagione was drawn to the alchemical spirits in Bitches Brew right out of college, acquiring a copy of the album "within months of the first time I brewed a batch of homebrew in my apartment in New York City. I listened to it when I was writing my Dogfish business plan. I wanted Dogfish Head to be a maniacally inventive and creative brewery, analog beer for the digital age. You could say that my dream was to have Dogfish Head, in some small way, stand for the same thing in the beer world that Bitches Brew stands for in the jazz world. You can imagine how excited we are to be doing this project 17 years after I wrote that business plan."

"There's a spirit of innovation, of creativity and individuality, thats at the core of Miles music," said Adam Block, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Legacy Recordings. "Sam and Dogfish Head approach their art from the same place and consequently the marriage is an easy and cool one." Dogfish Head and its "off-centered ales for off-centered people" were the subject of "A Better Brew," an article in The New Yorker (Nov. 24, 2008) examining the rise of extreme beer. "Beer has lagged well behind wine and organic produce in the ongoing reinvention of American cuisine. Yet the change over the past twenty years has been startling," wrote Burkhard Bilger. "Dogfish is something of a mascot for this unruly movement. In the thirteen years since Calagione founded the brewery, it has gone from being the smallest in the country to the thirty-eighth largest. Calagione makes more beer with at least ten per cent alcohol than any other brewer, and his odd ingredients are often drawn from ancient or obscure beer traditions. It is to Budweiser what a bouillabaisse is to fish stock."

Dogfish's Bitches Brew will be available in 750ml bottles in August 2010. For more on the Bitches Brew beer and album, please visit http://www.MilesDavis.com/brew