Craft Beer Royalty to Rap at Drafthouse

The founder of Delaware-based Dogfish Head, touting “off-centered ales for off-centered people" since 1995, first came to Alamo Drafthouse during the Craft Brewers Conference in 2007. “It was love at first sight for Dogfish and Alamo,” said Sam Calagione. “They were as passionate about indie beers as they were about indie films.”

That's how we came to be at this juncture, on the eve of the 6th annual Off-Centered Film Fest.

This year's theme is “hip hops, with a heavy emphasis on the hops.” To learn more about the event and purchase tickets, visit www.offcenteredfilmfest.com.

The Alamo Drafthouse & Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales present THE 2013 OFF-CENTERED FILM FEST! from Alamo Drafthouse on Vimeo.

“We just feel Austin is the quintessential 'off-centered' city,” said Calagione.

His sister, coincidentally, moved to San Antonio recently. “We'll be hanging out all weekend. I'm looking forward to showing her one of my favorite cities in the world.”

Thursday, April 18

Bring some dollars like it's a rent party, yo. The film festival kicks off tomorrow with a movie at Slaughter Lane*, and a percentage of ticket sales will benefit the nonprofit Texas Craft Brewers Guild.

“I wanna give a huge shoutout," Calagione-as-beer-rapper said, "to the Texas Craft Brewers Guild, because they've done great work in the past year in improving Texas beer laws."

"Texas is known nationally for – I'm trying to be polite – inordinately oppressive beer laws from the perspective of craft beer," he added.

KOOP Radio's Hip-Hop Hooray DJ's, food trucks, and Central Texas craft brewers showcasing new and rare brews will bring the block party.

"Going to the booths of Texas craft brewers, some that are old friends, some with brand new logos of a super-psyched brewer that opened three months ago – those are great moments."

You can have those great moments, too. Newcomers Infamous Brewing Co. and South Austin Brewing Co. will be serving, super psyched.

Friday, April 19

The Last Dragon (1985) Beer Feast surprisingly has not sold its last seat at the time of this writing.

"I'm really psyched for the full-on beer dinner, where each course is paired with two Dogfish Head beers, our really hard to find beers."

If you're not ballin' enough to pay the $75 for the dinner, there will be plenty of special Dogfish Head flowing after the feast for much less money at the Jiggy Crunk Sing-Along. I will bring my own brown paper bag for my beer.

Saturday, April 20

  The Short Film Competition finalists will be shown, of course, alongside special high gravity Dogfish Head beers. A free trip to Austin was one of the prizes for these filmmakers.

  The three-day event concludes with a rap battle and 8 Mile screening. Local freestyle MC p-teK will host the battle alongside Calagione, who will also perform. "We started the first only and best-selling beer geek rappers of all time," Calagione said of Pain Relievaz, of which he is one half.

"We sold about $500 on iTunes in the last two years."

This screening will also feature some special randalizations of Dogfish Head brews.  A randal is a double-chamber filter, with space to put ingredients, connected to a beer tap to give the brew “an extra injection of flava.” Regulators, mount up.

* The Thursday screening of Friday (confusing, we know) has moved to Slaughter Lane on account of the rain.

Ivy Le, a new and thirsty Austinite, hails from Dallas, but has been writing in Georgia for the last 11 years. Follow her on Twitter @UrbanHaiku.