Dogfish Head Alehouse

Sludgeman

District of Columbia

3.88/5  rDev -5.1%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4 | service: 4 | selection: 3.5 | food: 4 | $$

Sit at the bar or go for food. A wide selection of food. Never had a bad meal. Great for kids. Larger parties. Great for brunch. Good for a ballgame.

Dogfish Head is great beer. They have lots of great beers. My only complaint is that sometimes the selection can be limited. You may be in the mood for a certain beer, but the bar only has certain beers on tap. So only go if you are a DFH fan and only want the standard DFH fair.

They should offer a better selection of the DFH memorabila. Wish they had stickers.

12-04-2012 04:07:03 | More by Sludgeman

NEhophead

Massachusetts

3.95/5  rDev -3.4%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4 | service: 4 | selection: 4 | food: 3.5 | $$

Large set up with a lot of table seating in front and to the left of the entrance; long, wrap around bar to the right. Busy for a Tuesday night, but service was good allowing little wait on food/drink orders.

Approximately 12 beers on tap, all house brews, that included: Chicory, Shelter, 60, 90, Burton, Black & Blue, Palo, Raison, Sah Tea, etc.

My food order was good, typical brewpub fare. Nothing to complain about here, but of I were to try...maybe offering a few brews that are tough to get outside of the immediate vicinity.

05-16-2012 11:34:15 | More by NEhophead

jco3rd

California

4.38/5  rDev +7.1%
vibe: 4.5 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4 | selection: 4.5 | food: 4.5 | $$$

Great little venue and an opportunity to try some rare Dogfish Head brews. I was mostly there for the beer, but the food I had was really good, and seemed to be reasonably priced for what you would expect from this type of establishment. However, the beers were really expensive. Far more than I would have anticipated. I sometimes pay $10-$15 for a Dogfish Head four-pack, but to pay that much for a single pour seems a little on the high end of what I'm willing to pay for draft beer. I don't expect to pay $4 for a draft Dogfish Head, but also I did not anticipate that most of the beers on tap would be priced around $10 a pour. So just be prepared for that.

In spite of that, I would definitely visit again if I am ever in the area again. They had a great selection of the standard Dogfish Head brews, plus a few seasonal or limited release brews that were good. There were also creative modifications for standard Dogfish Head brews; like the black and tan, which was their 90 minute IPA with chicory stout floated on top. Another unforgettable spin was the "randall" which is a system that allows them to pour beer through any number of interesting ingredients to make a different spin on their unique brews. The time I visited, it was the 90 minute IPA poured through jalapenos and another spice that I do not recall at the moment. Very excellent.

I tried to explain to the waitress when I arrived that I was there for the beer, and that I would probably be ordering in quick succession. I'm sure she was just very busy, but it seemed like it took a while for me to get from empty glass to the next round, so I reduced the score for service simply for that reason. All in all though, the service was quite good.

04-13-2012 12:59:28 | More by jco3rd

Chaney

District of Columbia

4.48/5  rDev +9.5%
vibe: 4 | quality: 5 | service: 4 | selection: 4.5 | food: 4.5 | $$

I still have fond memories of having my bachelor party here about 3 years ago and renting out a bunch of rooms in a small hotel right up the street. Ahhh... the memories!

Atmosphere: This is located in the Seven Corners area of Falls Church and right smack dab in the middle of shopping complex with a grocery store, Home Depot, a craft store, and several retail stores. Also, it's totally cool that there is a really nice homebrew store across the street. Inside, the decor effectively strikes a balance between being rustic and modern. The bar area on the right hand side is small, but always seems to service the masses regularly without a hitch.

Quality: Of course, the beer is some of the finest produced in the world IMO. Also, the food is quite good as well.

Service: I've always had good service here and once even came in with a friend who knew one of the waiters and we got a rather large percentage taken off of our bill. The last time we went in here, the waitress told us about her orientation "training." It involved getting on a bus on a weekend at the brewpub and riding around to all the other three brewpubs, sampling ALL of the beers on draft, and being brought to Rehoboth Beach/Milton at the end for a brewery tour. There, the future employees were allow to kick the keg of whatever was assigned to their training party. They were then brought safely back to the Falls Church location via bus. While I have no interest in working there, I would be interested in the free training.

Selection: They always have about 10-15 of their beers on tap, with all of them being quite good (in the whole scheme of things). My personal favs are the Alehouse 75, Burton Baton, and Palo Santo.

Food: NEVER underestimate this place in this category. They have the best crab dip in town! Also, the brick oven pizzas are quite nice. My wife and I go here quite often and between the two of us, have sampled everything on the menu and none of it has been bad. NOTE: They also do a lot of beer dinners here and bring in the gourmet food for these events. Check them out!

Value: The beer is quite expensive compare to that of your standard brewpub, but after all... this is Dogfish Head! Their beer is much more experimental and labor intensive to make, so I personally feel it warrants the higher price. The food is on the reasonable side and deserves its place in the "Cheap Eats" section of the Washingtonian.

I go here at least once or twice a month and will continue to do so regularly. I'll let that be a testament to it's worthiness.

03-21-2012 11:21:43 | More by Chaney

TheFunGuy

Virginia

4.45/5  rDev +8.8%
vibe: 4.5 | quality: 4.5 | service: 5 | selection: 4 | food: 4 | $$

Nice looking place, modeled halfway between an applebees and a nice country club grill.

The selection was about 10 on tap, one replaced while I was there. The servers were polite and knowledgeable. Please note I gave a 4.0 for selection for Dogfish's beer offerings

Sixes and fours of most of their beers were available for take-out for a price 10% over normal retail store prices. The bartenders really knew their stuff.

The food was county club grill, good tasting but a little overpriced compared to a Lost Dog type place.

I recommend it.

01-10-2012 00:32:31 | More by TheFunGuy

JOTAS

Virginia

4.28/5  rDev +4.6%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4 | selection: 4.5 | food: 4 | $$$

Let me start off by saying that if you are a fan of beer especially those with "light" or "lite" in their names, this may not be your cup of tea. That being said, it may also awaken your senses and palette to one of the craft beer industries favorite brewery, Dogfish Head and their unique selection of beers.

If you are a fan of craft beer then you already know what to expect here. You'll find DF's seasonal and sometimes hard to find brews either on tap or in bottle.

With all this beer you'll need something to fill that stomach up to absorb some of the alcohol as these are high ABV (alcohol by volume) beers. The menu is typical pub fare. There are some stand outs like the spicy shrimp appetizer (if it's not on the menu you can still ask for it) as well as the Jambalaya which is spicy but will keep you digging back for more.

Their sandwiches are pretty darn tasty as well and the side of fries are nice tasty and appeared to be fried twice for that nice crunch and texture.

The curry chicken dish recently impressed the heck out of me. Spicy and delicious it was on point another entree to check out.

I'm not a big fan of their pizzas, their crust needs a little work but one pie does stand out and that's the Chesapeake which consists of pesto sauce, lump crab, asparagus, tomatoes, fresh basil, provolone blend and parmesan cheese. A very delicious pie for one or to share.

Honestly, the beer is what draws the crowds here but those few food gems do come through.

Buen Provecho!

11-17-2011 19:09:58 | More by JOTAS

DrinkSlurm

Connecticut

4.8/5  rDev +17.4%
vibe: 5 | quality: 4.5 | service: 5 | selection: 5 | food: 4.5 | $$

I travel to the Falls Church area a lot for work...well the DC area really, but stay close to DFH Alehouse on purpose. This place is amazing. You really cant beat the atmosphere. I usually sit at the bar, and there are TVs in each corner, but the people are super friendly and almost family like for such a popular place, so the TVs rarely get watched. The food is actually really really good! They wood grill a lot of the food and you can really taste it. The $5 burger mondays are great, as well as their daily happy hour specials.
The beer is great, obvi, and they always have a great seasonal selection/rotating selection, as well as their staples.
I live in NY and the (former) bartender knew me by name. That just show you how great they are (or that I go way to much). I look forward to working in the DC area just to go to dinner here.

10-26-2011 00:38:38 | More by DrinkSlurm

Eriktheipaman

California

3.83/5  rDev -6.4%
vibe: 4 | quality: 3 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4 | food: 4 | $$$

Checked this place out for the first time for my birthday dinner last week. The decor in here is pretty cool but with lots going on. service was very friendly and while not very knowledgeable about beer (which was to be expected) was very good.

My main complaint here is the beer is all served wayyy too cold. It took me 10 mins just to get my beer to warm up enough to really taste and smell. The prices on the none "standard" beers can be really steep. $9 for 12oz of Midas Touch is a little pricey to me but if I do pay that I would like the temp warm enough so I can actually taste it.

The food was pretty tasty and the overall experience was about what I expected. I will stop by again but I'll just stick to the cheaper beers on the menu.

09-20-2011 18:51:39 | More by Eriktheipaman

jschonert

Missouri

4.25/5  rDev +3.9%
vibe: 5 | quality: 5 | service: 5 | selection: 2 | food: 5 | $$$

Was in the DC area and wanted to finally check out one of DFH's alehouses. I had been watching their Draft List on their iPhone app and was disappointed to see the day I went there (a Wednesday) had only 5 beers on tap.
Someone correct me if Im wrong, but watching the draft list over a few weeks, it seems that they restock their drafts on Thursday/Fridays so it seems the worse day to go would be Tuesday/Wednesday which is when I went.

For the beer selection, I was pretty disappointed. The beer was great to try and our waitress gave us plenty of samples, but we couldn't do a flight of beers since they didn't have a few of them that are included in the flights. No 90minute IPA that night. Definitely no 75minute. They only seemed to have the 60minute, the Lawnmower (water), and few of the other weird ones that I wasn't too fond of. Again, I checked the iPhone app the next day and they seemed to have everything. I would definitely check their website or the app before going.

The atmosphere was more like an Applebees or TGIFs, but theres nothing wrong with that. Great music in the background.

As for the food, it was amazing. My wife had the crab cakes and I had the Chesapeake Pizza. Both were great.

Prices were a bit steep. A pint was at least $5. Most meals were hitting you for about $20. They also sell their beer in bottles, but their prices are nothing to write home about. I could probably get it cheaper across the street and they would probably have a better selection anyway.

We will both return here again anytime we come back to the DC area. I just really hope we come on the weekend when their beer selection will be bigger than say 4 beers on tap. Would definitely recommend this place. Even for all the negatives I mentioned, we went there for the beer and food. The few beers we had were great and the food was amazing.

07-02-2011 21:35:36 | More by jschonert

bamojr

Virginia

4.03/5  rDev -1.5%
vibe: 4 | quality: 4.5 | service: 5 | selection: 2.5 | food: 4 | $$$

Went here last evening with some friends and had a very nice time. The atmosphere is pretty good but it was incredibly packed and noisy and we did have to wait some time for a table but it was all worth it. Our waitress was very attentive and took great care of us. The selection took a hit because a lot of their draft list was out and we had to get bottles and some of the year round bottles were also out, so I was a little bit disappointed in that. They did have great food and excellent beer to boot. It was a decent little chunk of change, but I think this place is worth it. I do feel it would be better if I went back and some of the taps were back in service, it may have just been that it was so busy they were running out of things.

great place.

06-17-2011 06:17:49 | More by bamojr