In colonial America, it was possible to enter a pub and order a Dog's Nose, a potent combination of ale, gin and assorted spices. As odd as it might seem today, it and other "beer cocktails" such as Beer Flip, Calibogus and Whistle-Belly-Vengeance were quite popular at the time, owing in part, no doubt, to the variable and occasionally dubious quality of the available beer.
While the recent proliferation of impressive and high-quality artisanal beers produced in North America and around the world has certainly lessened the necessity of drinking the Dog's Nose, that doesn't mean canine-themed brews have gone the way of the three-corner hat. Far from it. A simple perusal of the shelves on any good beer store will reveal enough dog-themed brews to fill a kennel. Many brewery owners, it would appear, leap at the chance to immortalize their pooches.
Take for example the multi-faceted Spanish Peaks Brewing Company of Montana, which sports on all of its labels the image of owner Mark Taverniti's champion black lab, Chugwater Charlie M.H., known as "Chug" for short. Or the smiling face of Barney, the late Great Pyrenees owned by Sea Dog Brewing Company founder Pete Camplin, which graces all brands of that brewery's beer. Or even Oregon's Hair of the Dog Brewing Company, brewer of exceptional strong ales and espousers of the company motto, "Faithful, Loyal, Pure, Wet Nose."
The list goes on: Flying Dog Brewery of Colorado, purveyors of Doggie Style Ale; the Lucky Labrador Brewing Company, a Portland, Oregon, brewpub with an entire wall dedicated to photos of customers' dogs; Maine's Smuttynose Brewing and their Old Brown Dog Ale; and Ohio's Thirsty Dog Brewing Company, with their immortal fruit beer, Raspberry Leghumper.
Others are content to simply name a beer or two after their beloved canine friends, like Yellow Rose Brewing's owner Glen Fritz, who dubbed his light-tasting honey-wheat ale Bubba Dog Beer in honour of his pet, and the New Haven Brewing Company's Blackwell Stout, named after the black lab adopted by the brewery. Sometimes fate enters into the mix, as when the owners of New Mexico's Santa Fe Brewing Company were looking to name their new barley wine at about the same time that their dachshund, Petey, went on a rampage, killing 28 of the neighbour's chickens. And so was born Santa Fe Chicken Killer Barley Wine.
Pooch porters and hounddog hefeweizens are not the sole creations of North American breweries, either. In Australia, the Mathilda Bay Brewing Company offers a Dogbolter Special Dark Lager, perhaps inspired by the Dogbolter of the late Firkin brewpub chain of England. Less surprisingly but somewhat ominously, the Privatbrauerei Wilhelm Mayer of Rottweil, Germany, produces a schwartzbier called Das Rottweiler. And in England, the Wychwood Brewery invites you to take a pint of the Dog's Bollocks, which the brewery says is simply a slang term for 'the best.'
Of course, there are also those times when the beer comes first and the dog second. I'm thinking of a young brewery employee in Ontario who bought a black labrador retriever after he had secured his position with the brewing company. The name he gave his new canine companion? Porter.
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