Dogfish Head / Victory / Stone Saison du BUFF Returns for 2012

(Escondido, CA | June 25, 2012) — In 2010, the masterminds behind Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Victory Brewing Co., and Stone Brewing Co. came together to formulate a most glorious collaboration beer, taking some serious culinary (and musical?) inspiration with their inclusion of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme in the boil. Now, after a two-year hiatus, this beer at long last makes a glorious (albeit limited-time) return.

Dogfish Head / Victory / Stone Saison du BUFF was born out of an ad hoc group formed way back in 2003. Sam Calagione (Dogfish Head), Bill Covaleski (Victory), and Greg Koch (Stone) got together to drum up some press for the little guys in the craft brewing world.

“We called it BUFF, an acronym for Brewers United for Freedom of Flavor,” explains Koch. “We wanted to protest the flavorless, mass-produced, fizzy yellow lagers that dominated the marketplace, and we thought if these three brewers from different parts of the country banded together, we could really get the media to notice the incredible revolution that was going on in the craft beer world.”

While not a lot of media coverage arose from the formation of their group, the idea stayed alive and well in each of the brewers’ minds, ultimately becoming the impetus for this collaboration beer that was first brewed in 2010. “The reaction we got to it was amazing,” says Koch. “So much so, that as soon as I knew Bill and Sam were coming back to San Diego for the Craft Brewers Conference this year, we immediately made plans to rebrew it!”

And rebrew it they did. All three breweries recreated their own ever-so-slightly tweaked versions of the recipe, with Stone’s being the final version to be released. Using herbs organically grown around the brewery and from nearby Stone Farms, this refreshing, herbaceous, and peppery meeting of the minds is here just in time for the hot summer, but it won’t last very long.