Raison D'Etre
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Milton, Delaware, United States 🇺🇸
Belgian Style - Strong Ale Regular Out of Production|
Score
7.07
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A deep mahogany, Belgian-style brown ale brewed with beet sugar, raisins and Belgian-style yeast.
We began brewing this one at our pub in 1996 (we began packaging and selling it sometime in 1998) as the answer to the question, "What beer should I enjoy with a wood-grilled steak?" Raison D'Etre fits the bill. It's as tasty and complex as a fine red wine.
In the Quick Sip Clip video, Sam talks about Raison D'Etre inside the new cellars for our 600-bbl fermentation tanks. The cellars were designed specifically to allow sterile yeast management. The system also allows us to automatically dose the yeast into the fermentation tanks. At Dogfish, we use multiple strains of yeast for our different beers, so we are acutely aware of all that can go wrong when you don't love and protect the yeast.
We began brewing this one at our pub in 1996 (we began packaging and selling it sometime in 1998) as the answer to the question, "What beer should I enjoy with a wood-grilled steak?" Raison D'Etre fits the bill. It's as tasty and complex as a fine red wine.
In the Quick Sip Clip video, Sam talks about Raison D'Etre inside the new cellars for our 600-bbl fermentation tanks. The cellars were designed specifically to allow sterile yeast management. The system also allows us to automatically dose the yeast into the fermentation tanks. At Dogfish, we use multiple strains of yeast for our different beers, so we are acutely aware of all that can go wrong when you don't love and protect the yeast.
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8.2/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 9
Flavor 8
Texture 8
Overall 8
Bottle. Pours brown, tastes absolutely gorgeous. Woody sweet flavor and aroma. I loved it.
Tried
from Bottle
on 20 May 2025
at 00:43
7/10
—
Appearance 6
Aroma 7
Flavor 7
Texture 6
Overall 8
Bottle. This is a tasty beer. Sweet malty flavor. Dark rich color. Sweet fruity aroma. Can’t say anything negative beer. Highly recommended. Will drink again.
Tried
from Bottle
on 24 Mar 2025
at 05:16
6/10
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Appearance 6
Aroma 6
Flavor 6
Texture 6
Overall 6
dark brown pour, good beige head. Nice malty dark fruit aromas, lots of plums and raisins. Flavour is quite malty, with more dark fruit, i was expecting more larger yeasty notes, and maybe some bready malts, but alas, none. NOt bad, but i didnt really dig this.
Tried
on 27 Feb 2025
at 09:34
6.4/10
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Appearance 8
Aroma 6
Flavor 5.5
Texture 7
Overall 6.5
Rated June 2006. Nice amber to orange color with thin off white head. Interesting aroma of pepper corns and sweet malts. Flavor seems peppery. But as I think about it that's probably the beet sugar. The taste seems both sweet and peppery-spicy. Very interesting. It starts off sweet and then ends spicy.
Tried
on 21 Dec 2024
at 21:00
8/10
Tried
on 13 Dec 2024
at 16:50
7/10
—
Appearance 6
Aroma 7
Flavor 8
Texture 6
Overall 7
Notes from November 2011 Growler edition. Yikes! Dark orange/brown amber. Gelatinous haze. Tall, glittering, khaki colored head. Smells of green grapes, concentrated raisins & prunes, rum cake, floral honey, & fresh sawdust. Gentle warmth. The usual DFH excessive-ness. Bruised grapes & candi sugar. Muddled grain. Starchy/yeasty texture. Honey & dried fruit. Faint citrus bitterness. Not as sticky as the bottled stuff. The stiff carbonation eventually falters, & the texture becomes greasy. Alcohol seems in check until it warms up. Just limited my pours to a chilly half a pint at a time & I was able to stay awake long enough to kill the growler.
Tried
from Growler
on 31 Oct 2024
at 22:04
7.9/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 8
Texture 8
Overall 7.5
355ml bottle, New York 2012. Cheeky late rate. Dark brown pour, strong raisin base, smooth amber malt.
Tried
from Bottle
on 10 Dec 2023
at 20:57
6.8/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 6
Flavor 6
Texture 8
Overall 7
Early rating from Beer Buddy app
Tried
on 17 Apr 2022
at 01:06
7.2/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 7
Flavor 7
Texture 8
Overall 7
12oz bottle - shared. Sample with a friend. Strong Belgian Ale - darker and malty. Solid
Tried
from Bottle
on 14 Sep 2020
at 13:24
7.5/10
—
Appearance 6
Aroma 8
Flavor 8
Texture 6
Overall 8
Another review of a beer that I've made in the past that RB has lost. I'm getting really tired of it. The value of this site is rapidly diminishing. New review: this is from a bottle that is some years old refrigerated for most of the time but I can't say that it was all the time. The inside of the bottle cap which I think had an oxygen absorption Blair had turned very dark brown. Poured with little to no head. The Aromas are raisins, molasses and Brandy. Flavors are similar to nose, sweet up front with just a little carbonation to balance, some chocolate and some off flavors. Body's not bad except for the end of the bottle of were some chunks that I almost choked on. Decent enough All Things Considered but not something I would want to do it again.
Tried
from Bottle
on 07 Mar 2020
at 05:47