Back when I first traveled to the Czech Republic the route from my home in Munich went straight through Pilsen, past the Pilsner Urquell brewery. At the time, and for quite some time afterwards, the Pilsner Urquell’s own trip to the market involved fermenting in wooden barrels, which were painstakingly cleaned after each batch of beer.

Enter capitalism, and those wooden barrels were replaced with much more easy-to-maintain stainless steel. Call me a snob, but I’m convinced I can tell the difference. Happily, the folks at Dogfish Head are also enamored of wood, and have been aging beer in wood for some time now. They’ve kicked it up a notch of late, with three large wooden barrels of 300 gallons each. There’s even a movie!

I’ll be tasting some of those wooden-aged beers as soon as I can, and watch this space for a field trip to Milton, DE later in the season.

This is where I should be doing my blogging.