New Belgium Dig

I'm due for a spring beer review.

It's spring time people. Here in Nebraska the temperature has been reading from 50-70 degrees daily, the robins are back, and my damn lawn is plotting to start growing an inch and a half every 35 seconds. Now with spring comes lots of good things: Birds chirping, warm weather, sunshine, trees flowering and all that other nature crap. But besides good looking women dressing in progressively smaller wardrobes my favorite side effect of spring has to be the national brewers seasonal offerings. New Belgium's Dig just so happens to be one of the best ones I've tried in quite a while.

New Belgium Brewing company is definitely interesting to say the least. According to their website the company was commercially founded in 1991 in Ft. Collin's Colorado after 3 years of basement brewing to great reviews from friends and family. From the get go they claim to have stuck to their initial values and plans for the company, and NB makes good enough brews to be distributed somewhat nationally, so obviously their business plan works. Most interesting to this guy though is that they switched their entire brewery around in 1998 to run solely off wind power. These glorious beer making bastards were green before it was even cool. Gotta love that.

Now without going too far into the review I feel I need to discuss the classiness of New Belgium beers. They call their regular brew Fat Tire which is a pretty tasty, if not generally standard "Get noobs to try Craft Brews" Amber Ale. I mention Fat Tire because it was my first taste of NB, and almost every other beer has a particular taste that is strangely reminiscent of that beer. It could be the water they use, the casks they brew in, or just the Colorado air. Heck I don't know. Because of that New Belgium gets a classiness rating of a guy that just moved out of the trailer park into his first house that's equipped with solar panels and high efficiency appliances. Classy, but still down to earth.

Quit Rambling and get on with the review.
So anyway I tried Dig almost by accident. I swerved my slightly buzzed ass into my local shithole bar, got greeted by one of my more favorite bartenders, and she poured me up a small sample of what she called her "new stuff." Most of the time when I sit down in said bar I just drink their token special for the night because I usually walk in that door in order to get hammered, but I was so impressed by this beer I ordered 3 before switching to the tasteless macro-brews.

Proof I don't always drink at home.

Dig pours up fairly light for how dark it looks in the glass, and builds up a fairly thick and frothy head quickly. It carries a fairly strong hoppy and earthy smell that isn't shy at all. You can practically catch a whiff of this stuff sitting two chairs down the bar. When you get done circle jerking about the aroma like I'm prone to do and actually try the stuff you'll be welcomed by a slightly atypical, but excellent, spring beer. For those that have no idea what that means: You'll be drinking a fairly hoppier and sharper than average beer. What makes Dig a step above most of the other spring beers in my eyes isn't just the flavor, it's how New Belgium's brewers managed to cram so much of it in while keeping this beer light and entirely refreshing.

The Final Verdict.
New Belgium's Dig is an excellent seasonal spring beer. The flavor might be run of the mill - and the alcohol content won't knock you on your ass like some of my favorites, but you could easily choose worse if you're looking for a light and refreshing beer to remind of you better seasons. Some light beer drinkers might be turned off by the hopiness, but if you're experienced in the ways of drinking obscure beers it's nowhere near offensive. Try Dig. You'll like it.

P.S.
This is by far my longest beer review, and I wrote it a grand total of 2 weeks after trying this beer. Funny how notes, a good memory, and a habit of using creative language gives you such a long article.