What is the deal with the cowboy?

Four Dogfish beers feature a cowboy on the label and 4-pack ... who is that guy and why does he keep showing up on Dogfish Head beer?

Well, it doesn't make too much sense... and it's kinda convoluted, but here it goes ...

A few years back, Dogfish Head founder/President/poet/performer Sam Calagione wrote a monologue in which he created an alternative universe in which Woody Guthrie, instead of being the 'Father of the American Protest Song,' was instead the 'Father of the American Craft-Brewings Renaissance.'

Sam's idea stemmed from an interview Woody Guthrie did with Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress in which Guthrie described how he brewed a batch of homebrew with twice as much yeast as the recipe called for with the hopes that it would ferment twice as fast. Woody and his gang drank it the very next day - and of course got sick! But, as Sam sees it, the American Extreme Beer movement was born at that very moment.

Sam's didn't stop there (shocker!), he built a whole beer dinner around the idea and hit the road performing at beer bars across the country.

About the same time, Sam realized that one of his favorite musicians, Jon Langford (founding member of legendary British rock band the Mekons and also a member of the Chicago band the Waco Brothers) was an artist that depicted other well-known musicians in his work.

Sam hunted Jon down and asked him to design the label for Old School Barleywine, showing a Woody Guthrie-like hero adding the yeast. The label was a hit and the idea grew to include four beers including the Olde School, Burton Baton, Immort Ale and Raison D'Extra.