Yesterday, Alan Sprints of Hair of the Dog (HotD) passed away aged 66. He had announced his illness publicly earlier this year.
I never met Alan and I never went to any of the HotD locations – he and I were Facebook friends for a number of years FWIW. If I’m honest, I didn’t much care for the beers that Alan made, but that’s at least part of the reason that I wanted to write this tiny note.
From everything that I have read, and all of the beer people that I have spoken over the years, it became apparent that Alan did things pretty much exclusively on his own terms. In a interview with Jeff Alworth he once described himself as a contrarian. As such, I felt a mild kinship with him.
For me, Alan’s beer was difficult, a bit of an effort, and that’s not something that I ever wanted in most of my beer consumption. Of course my preferences – in fact nobody’s preferences – were any concern of his, he simply brewed the beer that he wanted to brew. I came to admire that in him (and by extension his beer) immensely, especially as brewers of late have continually bent to the latest trends in manners that I suspect they know is compromising their standards and their principles. Alan didn’t ever do that as far as I could tell. Alan will be greatly missed.
On more than one occasion I said to people that if I owned a brewery it would be most like Hair of the Dog, not because I wanted to brew like Alan. but rather because I would bloody well do what I chose and screw the rest. I have no idea if that’s what Alan was really like, but that’s the impression I got from afar, and I was delighted by it. For those reasons, and the fact that he was one of the OGs, I will always think of him and HotD kindly.
One final note. In 2022 I wrote that when HotD and Stone almost simultaneously “finished” in their own respective ways it was really hard not to draw a comparison between the two endings. As I said at the time these were definitely not apples-to-apples comparisons, but juxtapositioned they offered a stark and interesting contrast to the way two West Coast legends disappeared over the horizon. Godspeed.
There will be a ton of tributes out there, this one by is Ezra Johnson-Greenough is rather nice and ends with a great quote from Alan.
May his memory be for a blessing. I heard about Hair of the Dog for years but never encountered the beers in the wild. Jeff Alworth’s tribute is nice.
You mentioned Stone – I learned recently that Duvel Moortgat USA bought Stone from Sapporo earlier this year and the beer will be brewed by Firestone Walker and eventually Boulevard (both also owned by Duvel), which suggests a possible increased presence in the Midwest. I would be happy if they occasionally brought back some of the discontinued beers like Old Guardian, Russian Imperial Stout, and either version of Ruination, but will settle for finding Arrogant Bastard that’s still in the best before range …
Hi Bill – I definitely echo your comments both about Alan and about Stone. Just doing a inventory here, and I see that I have three, 2008 IRSs from Stone in the 12 oz bottles. I believe that these 12 ozers were made for an international market (maybe Japan), but a few got into the US distribution chain. Cheers!