Dubs Golden Ale — By the Bay, For the Bay
When the possibility was presented to us of brewing and branding a beer with the Golden State Warriors, we got excited. There were a lot of details to be worked out, for sure, but mostly what we thought about was having our beer pour at Chase Center, literally just up the street up from Magnolia Dogpatch, and getting co-branded cans of Dubs Golden Ale out and about in the market. With the transformation of the neighborhood due to the Warriors’ move back into The City, we also figured we’d see a fair amount of pregame and postgame action, so to have a signature beer co-branded with the team seemed like a great move. And to the Warriors’ credit, they really wanted to work with a small local brewery.
Naturally, the first thing I thought about was the beer. It had to be approachable, easy to drink, satisfying and not too hoppy. Craft brewers that we are, we also wanted it to have some character, some flavor, and just enough bitterness to keep the drinker coming back for another sip. Off the top of my head, the fact that the Warriors are the only team in the NBA to start their name with a color made the style and look of the beer fairly obvious. It would be golden, at any rate.
And so we set to work. We wanted the beer to be a pale golden color, so we used a blend of Pilsner and regular 2-Row malt, with a little bit of wheat to lighten the effect and keep the flavor brisk. For hops, we chose a unique blend of German and American varieties—Hallertauer Mittelfruh and Amarillo, respectively. As a nod to the team’s five-straight NBA Finals appearances, 5% abv seemed just the ticket, and we settled on 18 IBU for a level of bitterness we felt would be balanced and yet nominally noticeable.
In truth, Dubs didn’t spring out of our heads—or our breweries—full-grown and completely developed. We brewed a couple of slightly different versions at the pub brewery before committing to a recipe and brewing it on the 30-barrel Dogpatch system. And then we brewed more of it. And more. For those of you who might already have enjoyed the beer, either at one of our pubs or in the 12-ounce and 19.2-ounce cans we released last week, this is the final version of the beer we intend to continue brewing for the foreseeable future.
The development of the label was every bit as involved as the recipe for the beer. We worked with our friends at Gamut on this; they’ve already done past Magnolia can labels as well as a lot of our in-house graphic look. They’re also developing new artwork for cans of Kolsch and Narrow Universe, and have done the labels for past one-off 16-ounce releases such as Cloud Cover, Cistern Circles and Hella Extra. We landed on a can design with a really cool retro jersey look, with an ambitious and speedy lean to the lettering and an upward sloping band of gold and white stripes. We’re super excited about how it looks in the cold case, or in your hand, and how it will look racing around digital screens at Chase Center.
As mentioned, Dubs will be available at quite a few spots at Chase Center, at the two Magnolia pubs, sports and regular bars and restaurants around town, and in SF stores, including some chains. Once we’re able to crank up production distribution, Dubs availability will expand to the rest of the Bay Area as well.
So keep your eyes open, check out our new Dubs Golden Ale, and as soon as you can, enjoy it at Chase Center. The first concert is September 6, and the first Warriors preseason game rolls around a month later, against the Lakers on October 5 at 5:00 p.m.
