via BroBible / Dogfish Head Brewery
“We’re listening to Beethoven 200 and something years later, and it’s certainly not Beethoven performing the music—it’s interpretations of it.”
That’s David Lemieux, the Grateful Dead’s longtime archivist and historian, waxing poetic about how live music—and the Dead in particular—transcends its era. He shared that thought alongside Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, during a brand-new episode of The Mostly Occasionally Show, hosted by me, BroBible publisher Brandon Wenerd.
We got into my two favorite things in the world, after family and friends: beer and the Grateful Dead.
This resonates even more in 2025, as the Dead mark their 60th anniversary—six decades of cosmic improvisation, iconic artwork, and an ever-expanding global community.
And in 2025, as the Dead mark their 60th anniversary, that idea of interpretation, reinvention, and longevity feels more relevant than ever, along with some old-fashioned gratitude. The band’s orbit still spirals outward in surprising ways—like an 18-show Dead & Company residency at the futuristic Sphere in Las Vegas this spring or brand-new brews stamped with the Steal Your Face logo.
So how does a band that started in early-1960s California keep its momentum for over half a century—especially with its beloved frontman Jerry Garcia gone nearly 30 years?
If you know, you know. But it’s fun to hear Lemieux’s answer: that the Grateful Dead’s spirit has always been about collaboration, experimentation, and inviting everyone to the party.
They’re words that Calagione takes to heart. Throughout our chat on Mostly Occasionally Show, you can see him grinning as he pops a can of the newly released Dogfish Head x Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale.
“One of our rallying cries is ‘the status quo sucks,’” Calagione explains.
It’s a real pearl of a year for Sam and his company, with 2025 marking the “off-centered” brewery’s 30th anniversary.
“Certainly the Grateful Dead was a catalyst for lots of change…Jerry with bluegrass and country, Pig Pen with R&B, Bob with jazz, they all had their own sound. Similarly, at Dogfish, we don’t limit ourselves to one style—we want to bring that creativity and unexpectedness.”
Lemieux knows the feeling, too. “Deadlot was the first time that I was ever exposed…first time I was ever exposed to actual beer, good beer,” he recalls. “To that point in my life…the big ones, that’s all I knew.”
Steal Your Pint: Insied The Grateful Dead x Dogfish Head Beer
It’s not the first time these two cultural powerhouses have joined forces. About a decade ago, Dogfish Head worked up a beer fittingly called American Beauty—a granola-laced recipe meant to capture the parking-lot tailgate vibe, poured straight into your pint glass. This was brewed in collaboration with the Grateful Dead and released in summer 2015, around the time of the Dead 50 reunion shows at Levi Stadium in Santa Clara and Chicago’s Solider Field.
Now, 10 years later, with a full 60 years on the Grateful Dead bus odometer, the team has cooked up something equally approachable but brimming with complexity.
Officially dubbed Dogfish Head x Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale, it’s headed to practically every major chain and Dogfish Head retailer: Whole Foods, Wegmans, Publix, etc. Yes, it will also be on tap during Dead and Company’s 18-show residency at The Sphere from March to May, where Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, John Mayer and the gang will blow minds with cutting-edge visuals and sonic exploration.
“For this one, we wanted it to be super approachable, but still have complexity,” Sam says, demonstrating the easy-drinking vibe in real time. “We didn’t want it to be a unidimensional throat punch of bitterness from hops.”
He describes the beer at 5.3% ABV, laced with granola—”as you’d find on Shakedown Street”—and a little-known perennial grain called Kernza, which helps sequester carbon at a far higher rate than typical barley. More importantly, Kernza provides a crisp, dry finish that balances the fruity blasts of Azacca (mango, citrus) and El Dorado (pineapple, watermelon) hops.
“It’s going everywhere. Our best launch of a new beer at Dogfish since we launched 60 Minute IPA over 20 years ago,” Sam grins, clearly stoked about the response.
Tastes Like Another Tune
Much like a Dead live tape that’s made the rounds over the decades, though, the beer is only part of the story.
David Lemieux is the Grateful Dead’s archivist. You’re almost certainly familiar with his work, including his Today In Grateful Dead History radio show on the SiriusXM Grateful Dead channel, and the figure behind Dave’s Picks the official series of archival Grateful Dead releases on vinyl that follows in the lineage of the official Dick’s Picks audio concert series. He’s the guy who sifts through thousands of hours of multi-track recordings, cassettes—whatever’s in the vault—and picks out pristine shows, then works with audio engineer David Glasser and a team at Rhino Records to remaster and package them, then selling the official vinyl releasing on Dead.net.
“We do so much listening,” Lemieux says. “I’ve got an extensive set of notes. It’s all in my head, too. When we’re working on a new one, we look at what we haven’t done for a while—maybe we need more Brent-era stuff, or something from the ‘60s. We’re flexible…if we hear something else that we get excited about, we go that direction.”
That sense of on-the-fly inspiration echoes how Sam brews. Lemieux recalls their first collaboration: Sam spontaneously tossing in a bit more honey at the last second—like a quick pivot in a sprawling “Dark Star.”
Press Play & Pour: The Vinyl Side of the Grateful Dead Beer Collab”
The Grateful Dead has always been about vibes and tribes. There’s music, yeah sure, but there’s also atmosphere. In the spirit of that ethos, the Dogfish Head x Grateful Dead also comes with its own soundtrack.
Sam, David, and Sam’s 25-year-old son, Sammy, also a “huge Deadhead”, have curated a six-track live vinyl companion that spans decades.
Naturally, as a huge fan of the Brett Mydland years on keys, I had to ask: Does it include any ‘80s Dead?
“There is,” Sam confirmed. “One tune from the ‘80s.”
“Hey, and there’s some ‘90s Dead,” David added.
The final selection spans the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, mixing in both early and late ‘70s Dead for good measure. But don’t expect to find these tracks on Spotify—each selection has appeared on archival releases before, but they’re now out of print and unavailable on streaming, making this vinyl edition a rare, back-porch treat.
“We went to previously released live Grateful Dead archival releases, but all things that…are sold out, that are out of print,” Lemieux explains. “It’s a classic 40 minutes of just great Grateful Dead music.”
There are only six songs, so the record plays like a well-curated setlist—one big jam across decades of Dead. After digging through the band’s vast archive for years, Lemieux knows how to craft a listening experience that flows.
It’s a fine way to toast Dogfish Head’s 30 anniversary The exact tracklist remains under wraps, with an official announcement coming soon, but fans can look to grab a copy on Record Store Day—which also happens to mark 10 years of Dogfish Head as the official brewery of the vinyl holiday.
“The focus was just something to sit on the porch and listen to Grateful Dead music while sipping a beer, of course,” Lemieux adds.
Getting On The Bus, from Buffalo to RFK
Of course, no Dead conversation is complete without a little show nostalgia. We had to talk about origin story of both Sam and David’s Grateful Dead fandom. Sam admits he only got to see Jerry twice—once at RFK in summer ’91, another time that’s fuzzy in memory (“I blame balloons,” he jokes). But Lemieux? He tallied an even one hundred shows during the band’s late ‘80s to early ‘90s run.
“Last show was Buffalo Rich Stadium, June 13, ’93. Then I took a break for three years… But when I came back in ’96, it was with a critical ear, which helped with the job I ended up getting in ’99,” Lemieux says.
He believes that break let him rediscover the Dead as if for the first time, something many fans can relate to: stepping away only to return deeper in love.
Like good beer, the Grateful Dead is about balance.
Brew & Beyond: The Grateful Dead Collaboration Machine
For David Lemieux, the Dead’s collaborations aren’t just branding—they’re extensions of a wildly original artistic ecosystem that’s always evolving. “We always want to work with like-minded, good people,” he says, recalling his first visit to Dogfish Head. “It reminded me so much of Grateful Dead Productions… everybody’s on equal footing. It was definitely the right fit.”
That spirit has transformed the Dead songbook into more than music—it’s a shared language, a universal signal for those in the know. Spot a Steal Your Face logo on a ski jacket or a tie-dyed hoodie, and chances are, you’ve just met someone who gets it.
From Nike SB Dunks to Atomic Bent Chetler skis, the Dead’s aesthetic stretches across fashion, outdoor gear, food, and drink—a countercultural legacy repackaged for a new generation. Hot sauce, wine, socks with dancing bears, high-end streetwear. it’s not selling out, it’s just spreading the vibe.
A beer collab on this scale is just another way to not fade away. The Dead’s presence remains as vital as it was in college dorms in the 1970s and 1980s, stadium parking lots, and basement tape-trading circles for six decades.
And if you need proof, look no further than the December 2025 Kennedy Center Honors, where David Letterman, Chloë Sevigny, and Miles Teller helped introduce the Dead’s music to a tuxedoed audience, a proverbial whose who of cultural movers and shakers.
A band that once played to barefoot freaks in the Haight-Ashbury on head fulls of Owsley Stanley’s finest batch of LSD now had Washington’s elite, including the President, singing along to “Ripple.”
A long, strange trip, indeed.
“That Community Is Never Going Away”
60 years is a good time to pause and reflect how The Dead will endure. The Stealie, living on like a cultural hieroglyph of a music and united spirit.
“Between all the activities—Dead & Company with Bob and Mickey, Wolf Brothers, what Billy’s up to—there’s always going to be places for people to gather,” he says.
Meanwhile, Sam Calagione sees that spirit flow from generation to generation:
“My son’s 25, so it’s a perfect example of his generation and his buddy—they were just as into working on this album as I am.”
Sixty years is a long time, but, when the music never stops, it goes by in a flash. From vault dives to off-centered ales, from Vegas jams to cover bands keeping “Eyes of the World” spinning past midnight down at the neighborhood bar, the Grateful Dead still bridge old and young, mainstream and counterculture.
Lemieux wraps it up:
“That community is never going away.”