I feel like Captain Ahab ... I found my great white whale.

I want to say that it's been at least a year and a half since I've tasted the hoppiest beer on the planet. When Brew Masters debuted last November, that really didn't help anything either as everyone now wanted to get their hands on some 120. Great for DFH, bad for me and the rest of the fans out there.

Yesterday, our buddy Jimmy out at Manchester Wine and Liquor, sent out an email with the new daily beers available. At the bottom of the list was the words we've been waiting for: "Dog Fish 120 IPA - (Sorry - Limit 2 btls)." At $8-9 dollars a bottle you can't really buy a ton of them. Right?

The journey began by calling all of the package stores in West Hartford so we didn't have to make the drive through Hartford across the river. Of course, no one had any, so we set out. Upon arrival, we learned they were already out. Of course they were. Since we showed up 6+ hours after the email was sent, we weren't exactly surprised because of the rarity of this beer. We didn't know the night was just beginning.

We definitely asked the right person there because he told us to call M&R down the road to see if they had anything. With two M&R's close, Scott called both. The first was all secretive about it and said we could only have 1 bottle. The second was more relaxed and just said, "yeah, we still have some."

With that, we drove to the second store. When we got there, a guy walked us to his back room saying he had a few 4-packs left in the only case they had. We opened the box and saw three 4-packs. Absolutely amazing.

Before we could start celebrating, we asked how much these would set us back. He said, "I'm not sure, we can ring them up. I heard they are pretty expensive ... something like eight or nine dollars." Then he paused and said, "that's got to be for the 4-pack, not for a bottle, that'd be ridiculous." Scott and I knew it was for the bottle, not a 4-pack. Even as we walked to the front desk, he looked in the cooler and pointed at the 90 minute 4-pack, for $9, and said, "it's going to be comparable to that."

We get to the front desk, and he rings up all three 4-packs as $8.99. Both Scott and I tried not to say anything and leave the store as quickly as possible. We got into the car, celebrated, then drove home.

What should have cost us somewhere in the vicinity of $130 only cost $28.83. In a roller-coaster type of night where we weren't sure if we would get any, we got three times as much as we originally thought for a mere fraction of the price. A once in a life opportunity for sure.

In our first stop, I picked up a 60' and 90' as well and am going to do 4.5 hours of DFH this weekend and see if I can take them all down before I either pass out or Christi has to take me to the hospital. I'm sure I'll be in sweet bliss no matter what happens.

Cheers.