For The Dive Bar it means rare beer, rare spirits, imaginative costumes and spectacular live music!

Join us for our annual Halloween Bash with Dogfish Head Brewery! We will have 22 Dogfish Head Drafts, Troy Gonyea, Duncan Arsenault, John Vaughn, Brooks Milgate, DJ Shame and a few special guests LIVE!!!! 1 Cask, an assortment of Dogfish Head Spirits to sample, the boys from Dogfish Head… and YOU!

We will be tapping every specialty beer Dogfish Head has made over the last two years and then some as we’ve been squirreling away these barrels since last October!

Some of the beers to be tapped…

75 min IPA (cask)
Black and Blue
Red and White
Olde School
Immort
Theobroma
Pangaea
Sahtea
120Min
World Wide Stout
Fort
Rasion D’Extra
Chataeu Jiahu
Burton Baton
Midas Touch
Palo Santo Marron
Shelter Pale Ale
Punkin
90min…..

You get the picture

A very special Hangover Brunch will take place @ Armsby Abbey the next morning from 11-4 with a DFH Bloody Mary bar and special cocktails using the DFH Spirits! More details to follow:)

Hope to see you there!!

Cheers!

On @ The Dive Bar
Brooklyn Manhattan Project
Bear Republic Rebellion IPA
Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin
Avery Ellies Brown
B.B.C. Coffeehouse Porter (nitro)
Great Divide 15 Anniversary
Cisco Baileys Blonde
Dogfish Head Palo Santo
Dogfish Head Midas Touch
Southern Tier Oat
BBC Oktoberfest
Founders Breakfast Stout
Lagunitas Lucky 13
The Bruery Autumn Maple
Allagash White
Sixpoint Sweet Action

On @ Armsby Abbey
Maredsous Blonde
Duvel Green
La Trappe Isid’or
Pausa Cafe P.I.L.S.
St. Bernardus Abt 12
Saison Dupont
Wintercoat Vildmoseol
Allagash Four
Avery The Kaiser
21st Amendment Back in Black IPA
Southern Tier Oat
BBC Coffee House Porter (Nitro)
O’Hara’s Celtic Stout (Nitro)
Weihenstephaner Hefe Weisse
Sixpoint Righteous
Allagash White
Boulder Mojo IPA
Brooklyn Manhattan Project
BBC Imperial Steel Rail
Unibroue La Terrible
Lagunitas ‘08 Olde Gnarleywine
Stone Vertical Epic 09.09.09

Details:
Did you miss our pig roast with Boulder Beer back in August? Did you have such a good time you wish we would do it again? Wish granted! Join us on Sunday, October 4th as we open the Dive Bar at NOON for our first annual Hogtoberfest! From 12PM-5PM on this day Alec and his culinary squad from Armsby Abbey who will roast 2 whole local pigs and tap 6 super fresh Berkshire Brewing Company Casks for one low price of $35! Thats right people all the pig you can eat & Berkshire Cask Ale you can drink for $35!

Drink:
Berkshire Brewing Company from South Deerfield, MA, will supply (6) super fresh Casks of: Lost Sailor IPA, a super-hopped version of Lost Sailor IPA developed between Alec & BBCs brewer/owner Chris, River Ale, Goldspike, 2009 Holidales first release fresh from the fermenter and Berkshire Ale.

Eats:
2-140lb locally raised Heritage Black Pigs, Roasted Corn on the Cob, our Homemade Carolina Style Cabbage Slaw, Potato Salad, Cucumber Salad plus Armsby Abbeys Homemade Jalapeo-Cornbread!
NOTE: All vegetables utilized for this event will come from Berberian Farm (Northboro, MA)

Vibe:
Beyond the usual chill environment found at the Dive Bar and in the Beer Garden how about listening to some amazing soulful jazz/funk?!? Turtle Boy 2009 winners for Best Weekly Series, The Giant Yes, will be performing live! If you were at the last pig roast then you already know how amazing this band is.

Tickets:
Due to the nature of this event we ask that you purchase your tickets in advance. Tickets will be available at three locations: The Dive Bar, Armsby Abbey and online at Brown Paper Tickets. There is NO guarantee that tickets will be available the day of at the door. Ticket sales are limited to the first 150 people. This event is rain or shine so dress accordingly. The last pig roast was a sellout success and we have no doubt that this one will be as well!

LIVE-EAT-DRINK-SUPPORT LOCAL!!!

This event is brought to you by supporting & utilizing 100% Massachusetts based farms/products.

Tickets Available Here! www.brownpapertickets.com/event/84282

related post: Thursday Music Continues

In college, Alec Lopez read a book that changed his life. Called Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow, he’s genuinely tried to live his life that way, and, it seems to be working out.

As owner of The Dive Bar (as well as the more recently-opened Armsby Abbey) on Green Street, Lopez is one of those guys – not unlike Vincent Hemmeter – who draws people in just by being himself.

Hanging at the Dive can still feel like one of those best kept secrets that isn’t quite so secret anymore – a local gem that townies bring their out-of-town guests to for a beer. The intimate, tavern-like pub that focuses on serving up microbrews and craft beers evolved from a college kids’ meat market to something of a hipster hang, without the pretension. In fact, the vibe is so “ridiculously chill” there that Lopez is reluctant to want to talk about it to the media. He has never advertised for that very reason. Still, Lopez explains that achieving the vibe was one of the most patient and deliberate acts of his life.

“I started converting the bar to fit my personality,” he says, “slowly changing the beer selection, slowly changing the music. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. The most important lesson I’ve learned about the Worcester night scene is if you do anything, be deliberate and unfaltering.”

Not only does the Dive thrive in the colder months, but with the new fenced-in patio outback, it is becoming one of the most inviting places to hangwhen the summer hits. Lopez bought The Dive about four years ago, and began work on the outside “Beer Garden” last year, just about the same time Armsby Abbey was opening.Though the patio technically isn’t finished yet, it’s open, and Lopez has some big plans for improvement on it in the coming months. “The patio is big,” says Lopez, who is also opening the bakery Crust soon, too. “It’s the largest outside in Worcester, definitely. We still have quite a bit of landscaping to do. And we’re doing a mural on the back wall as well as building a stage and adding some lighting. The Dive has no equal, inside or out. We are an oasis in the city. My customers are always appreciative and grateful for The Dive. I can’t tell you how amazing it feels to have poured my soul into this little corner bar and have it be so appreciated.”

The music, too, is key. With help from Duncan Arsenault and bartender Jeremy Curtis, the three of them “only book amazing talents.” Monday nights, Al Vaudreuil leadsa cast of jazz musicians. Thursdays, of course, have been popular for years with drummer Arsenault’s rotating slew of musician mixes, bringing in the likes of Scott Ricciuti, Michael Thibodeau, Troy Gonyea, Brooks Milgate and Jon Short, and various other combinations, on a regular basis. Weekends bring inbands such as The Cassavettes, The Weisstronauts, Gilded Splinters, the Delta Generators, Bow Thayer and the PerfectTrain Wreck, The Howl, The Hurricane Horns and more. To him, he says it’s the only venue in the city with an uncompromising program.

And he uses the same approach in choosing his brews. The Dive currently has 16 taps, 80 bottles and one cask.

“I was raised with a ‘slowfood’ philosophy,” says Lopez. “That encompasses all aspects of my life. As a chef, I’m extremely careful with selecting only the finest and freshest ingredients. As a consumer, it’s no different. Why anyone would drink a Bud or the like is beyond me; these are products brewed with the cheapest ingredients money can buy for maximum profit. It’s fast food. No thanks. I’ll take a hand-crafted brew every time. As for deciding what I carry, I’m a beer geek. I only carry the finest beers from the United States. There are no imports at The Dive.”

The Worcester Telegram Summer Book -2009

100 Thursdays in the Making
Pat Clark

Thursday, June 11, was a date to celebrate at the Dive Bar. One hundred Thursdays ago, Drummer Duncan Arsenault went on a mission to bring together a wide assortment of Worcester musicians for live music performances on Thursday nights. The tradition has been going strong ever since. Usually, on a Thursday, the Dive Bar will have a good number of people in attendance, but on Thursday there was a line of people that snaked all around the outside sidewalk.

An eight-piece group made up of local musicians from diverse bands shared the stage performing funk and groove music from Al Green and James Brown, to Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder. Playing two electric keyboards with a permanent smile on his face was Brooks Milgate. Craig Rawding sang his heart out on vocals and blew his lungs out on the Harmonica. Steve Lefabvre and Brian Thomas gave the music an extra funk-feel with the Trumpet and Trombone. Brian Kearsley provided the right kind of jazz with his Saxophone. Al Vaudreuil and Jeremy Curtis kept a steady groove with the Guitar and Bass, while Arsenault was the backbone of it all.

You can call the musicians superstars or masters of their craft. In between songs, members would form a huddle and start explaining the chords progression for the next song, as if they never had a rehearsal. “It’s a basic E-minor and D-flat progression. You remember to give a pause when he screams at the bridge.” During the performance, Arsenault would keep a beat with his feet and one hand while the other hand was fixing the levels on the PA system set up behind him.

The joint was so jam-packed with people it was close to impossible to move, though the outside patio provided for a nice breath of fresh air. The few table-umbrellas setup guarded the smokers and shoppers from the torrential downpour. There were shoppers because there was another celebration going on outside, Punky’s grand opening of her mobile vintage boutique (Punky is a bartender at the Lucky Dog Music Hall and vintage cloths entrepreneur,Punkystyle.com). She transformed a very small mobile home into a thrift store that was parked for business in the patio area.

The entertainment went on right until the bar closed at 1 a.m. with very few intermissions. The crowd that night was an unbelievable mix of the generations; women and men in their 60s drank and danced right alongside women and men in their 20s. Some sat at the bar and never left their stool, while others did their best to move through the crowd and mingle. Others preferred to be stationed under the umbrellas outside in the patio area with their drinks and smokes in their hands. There was no perfect spot to experience the night. No matter where you were positioned, good people, good music and good beer were in close vicinity.

THE BEER NUT: In breathless anticipation of 75 Minute IPA from Dogfish

When bar owner Alec Lopez tapped the firkin, the crowd cheered, and he and other bartenders rushed to fill the special Dogfish Head pint glasses and hand them out to the crowd.

Dogfish sent 75 pint glasses to each bar that participated in the “simulcask,” and the first 75 people to get a pint of 75 Minute IPA got to keep the glass. I snagged one. I was about the 30th person to be served. Now I have a new Dogfish Head pint glass to add to my small collection at home, so now I have two different pint glasses and a snifter.

The first firkin was kicked, or tapped out, within 18 minutes. The second lasted a little longer the last pint was drawn around 10 p.m.

I was lucky enough to get two pints.

read the whole article here

Johnny Cask has entered the building!  We’ve retrofitted a 15 barrel tank to perfectly produce a very special cask conditioned ale (so, we have a little time to play around during winters at the Delaware coast).  This beer, known as Dogfish Head 75 Minute IPA is a blend of 60 and 90 Minute IPAs with a special whole leaf cascade dry-hopping session. Post-hopping the beer gest transferred into firkins and dosed with fresh yeast and maple syrup from the ole family homestead (actually the first batch will be re-fermented with maple syrup from the farm up the road from ours since ours won’t be ready until late March.  We plan to ramp up our maple house activities to get a lot more syrup for Immort Ale, 75 Minute and future beers in the coming months and years).

The debut of these 75 Minute IPA casks will take place during a live ‘Simul-cask’ event in NYC, Phily, Boston, WORCESTER! and our home base in Rehoboth Beach, DE on Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 7:50pm (EST).

After the initial launch our 75 Minute casks will be available at select accounts in Philly, NYC, Boston (”first we take Manhattan, etc”, L. Cohen) and, of course, our original brewpub in Rehoboth Beach, DE. The next year we may roll them out into additional markets.

Here is the Simul-cask Skinny:

What: Dogfish Head 75 Minute IPA Simul-cask
Where: Select accounts NYC, Philly & Boston, plus our own brewpub in Rehoboth Beach, DE
When 7:50pm (EST), Thursday 3/26/09
Why: Because it sounds like a great idea!
Plus: The first 75 customers at each Simul-cask event get a free curved pint glass (where legal and while supplies last)!

We also have a very special band for this event! The Hurricane Horns will be performing all night long. If you haven’t seen The Hurricane Horns yet, here’s what to expect. “… a world class New Orleans Jazz, Southern Funk and Soul, and Rhythm and Blues band.”

Product: 75 Minute IPA Cask
Date: 3/26/2009
Tapping Time: 7:50 PM

The Dive Bar
34 Green Street
Worcester Ma 01604

read more about the IPA Simul-Cask click right here!

Tonight (3/12) we have Troy Gonyea, Jeremy Moses Curtis and Duncan Arsenault laying down some nasty blues! This is the most talented trio you will see anywhere outside of a 10,000 seat arena! And you will see them for free! Troy (formerly of The Fabulous Thunderbirds) is about to embark on a tour with a national act, Jeremy has just finished a CD @ Levon Helmes’ joint with his band Bow Thayer and Perfect Trainwreck and Duncan of Curtain Society fame currently plays for both Shana Morrison and The Howl!

Did I mention NO COVER?! If you miss this you will certainly regret it!

And as if that weren’t enough, tomorrow night (3/13) we have The Phoenix Best Of Boston winners The Cassavettes! This young energetic rock band loves playing The Dive so much that they keep asking to come back. These guys normally play venues 5 times the size for 5 times the money! They love the vibe @ our joint and can’t get enough! This show is also for free! Thats right NO COVER!! Come watch these guys rip the roof of the place!!

Both shows @ 9:30

Killer Taps

No Cover