Meet Dave.
Dave, the beer, was produced in 1994 by one of Portland’s earlier craft brewers, Alan Sprints, of Hair of the Dog Brewing Company. It’s good, apparently — in 1998, it won first place at a legendary beer festival. It’s really, really alcoholic. And, for a brief time this week, it was on sale again: 12 bottles, for $2,000 apiece …
Beer Served Rare explains what is so fricking great about this beer:
Hair of the Dog Dave is one of the rarest, most sought after beers among the American craft beer landscape. A barleywine coming in at 29% ABV, Dave was produced in 1994 by freezing 300 gallons of the brewery’s flagship Adam beer numerous times, reducing the batch size to less than 100 gallons.
That $2,000 price isn’t unrealistic, either — the market for this beer is so fierce that people have already paid more than that price for a bottle of the stuff. Last year, there was a silent auction for two bottles of Dave. The auction started at $1,400 per bottle, and one of them sold for $2,368.73.
And while it may seem a tad ridiculous to pay $2,000 for a bottle of any alcoholic liquid, we’re happy to call this a win for small and local production. And also for Guide Dogs for the Blind, the recipient of the proceeds from last year’s auction and this year’s sales.
