[Photo courtesy of Brewpublic]

[Please see Alan’s comments (click article title and scroll to bottom) for updates/corrections to the article.]

(Portland, OR) – As most know by now, Hair of the Dog is doing it up big for its semi-annual sale taking place at the brewery this Saturday (10am-4pm). The sale will feature Fred from the Wood, 2008 Doggie Claws, some vintage beers, and 100 cases of a new one called Cherry Adam from the Wood.

The beer is a spin-off of Adam from the Wood, one that, according to RateBeer, was aged for seven years in bourbon barrels. According to The Beer Here, “Sprints bought twice as many fresh cherries — 750 lb. — for this year’s batch.” The Oregon black cherries are aged with the beer for 15 months in Bourbon and Sherry casks…a month of aging for every year the brewery has been in business. Alan Sprints, Owner/Head Brewer, said in an interview last year that the total process for Cherry Adam would be four years by the time of release.

The base beer for both of these concoctions is, of course, Hair of the Dog Adam. According to the HotD website, it is a recreation of a historic beerstyle, originally brewed in Dortmunder, Germany. It was Sprints’ first Hair of the Dog beer (and happens to don the name of the ‘first man’…and the author of this very blog). Want to know more about it? Look no further than The Homebrew Chef, the be-all end-all source on this beer complete with recipe and pics.

Not to jump the gun, but here is what Sprints has up his sleeve for next year’s dock sale. He will be releasing a beer in the style of a Flanders Red. Brewed in January 2007, it fermented in stainless and is then “aged in Oak barrels for at least 30 months, 2007 is American Oak, 2008 is French and I am still thinking about 2009.” The base beer isn’t from Hair of the Dog’s existing line; it uses “Munich, Vienna and Organic Pilsner malts with a low Hopping rate.” And the funk comes from Wyeast’s Roselare blend (#3763?), a seasonal release that was last made available in April of this year according to some online sources (but no mention of it on Wyeast’s site and no way to dig it up through Archive.org :-\ ).

Last but not least, Sprints is also working on a “special release early next year” for Seattle’s BottleWorks (oh, could it be Bottleworks X?!). It will be “a strong Dark Ale and has been aging in Oak since last year.” Assuming it is Bottleworks’ 10th Anniversary beer, you could probably expect to see this by early April. Last year’s version, Russian River Deviation, was released right around April Fools Day.

The leap into Belgians is a new experiment for the heralded Oregon brewery. Hair of the Dog Rose appears to be the only attainable release for a Belgian-style ale from the brewery to date.