Dogfish Head Sah’tea

Where Spotted: D’Vines, 3103 14th St. NW

Price: $17/750ml bottle

Pour Some Sugar on Tea: Sah’tea’s label isn’t shy about its oddball spices, and its flavor is just as loud. Juniper, cardamom, and black pepper add nose-tingling herbaceousness (“stank,” to use a technical term), while the black tea brings mouth-puckering tannins akin to sweet tea. And this beer is sweet—a tad more than I’d like, but there’s a whole lot of flavor going on regardless.

No Serenade, No Fire Brigade, Just Chai-romania: What spices did I miss? Sah’tea also packs cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and rye. Oh, and it’s brewed with hot rocks dumped directly into the vat, which caramelizes some of the grain’s sugars. It doesn’t all harmonize in one epiphanic mouthful, but you can pick out each flavor. So it’s more Neutral Milk Hotel than Mozart, which is not really a problem.

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