Beer for Breakfast (Photo: Dogfish Head Brewery)

Because who doesn’t want to drink beer for breakfast?

Well, okay, not just any beer.

Dogfish Head Brewery, located in Milton, Del., celebrated the 21^st birthday of  the Chicory Stout by combining it with all-natural breakfast ingredients.

Beer for Breakfast, an off-centered, winter seasonal stout from Dogfish Head, hit taps and retail shelves on Monday, Nov. 7.  The seasonal stout contains 7.4% ABV and 30 IBU’s, while featuring more than ten breakfast inspired ingredients including a hearty serving of scrapple.

The name of the beer is a shout out to Dogfish Head founder and President Sam Calagione’s favorite band, The Replacements, from a lyric from one of his favorite songs – “all I want to do is drink beer for breakfast” and he thinks you should too.

“The recipe for our original breakfast beer Chicory Stout, just turned 21 this year.  Legal drinking age.  To mark this momentous occasion we have taken a couple decades experience brewing with culinary goodness and combined our favorite pure, all-natural breakfast ingredients into a beer that we will think you will agree is the most important meal of the day,” said Calagione.

Dogfish Head prides themselves on being thoughtful and consistent, and the creation of this brew was no different.

All-natural breakfast ingredients were thoughtfully sourced in this flavorfully robust, cozy stout. Ingredients in the brew include Guatemalan Antigua cold press coffee, brown sugars, maple syrup harvested from Western Massachusetts and applewood smoked barley, providing a bacon-y aroma. The stout also includes Kiln coffee and carmel malt, flaked oats, roasted barley, molasses, milk sugars and roasted chicory.

Creators claim the star of Beer for Breakfast is the Rapa Scrapple, a classic Mid-Atlantic complement to the most important meal of the day.  If you’ve never had it, scrapple is described as an ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ type of meat, made from pork scraps, cornmeal and spices.  Rapa, the world’s largest producer of scrapple, was started by brothers Ralph and Paul Adams in Bridgeville, Del., just a few short miles from the brewery.

“Working with Sam and the brewers at Dogfish Head was an interesting experience,” says Rapa’s Donna Seefriend. “Sam’s vision of translating the distinctive taste of Rapa Scrapple into a beer was a unique proposition. Both Dogfish Head and Rapa’s production team brainstormed more than a few ideas, and it was decided that a super-lean version of our original recipe would balance nicely with the other ingredients. The end result is a remarkable beer that manages to bring together all the flavors of the quintessential American breakfast.”

Dogfish Head held a special brunch on Saturday, Nov. 5 and Sunday, Nov. 6 at Chesapeake & Maine, the company’s ‘new geographically enamored seafood restaurant’ to celebrate the brew. To learn more about Beer for Breakfast, visit www.dogfish.com/brewery/beer/beer-breakfast.

Editor’s note: In the interest of full disclosure, Dogfish Head Brewer is owned by a close relative of the owner of WBOC.