Get your groove on

Craft beer and vinyl records share a certain kinship – both offer superior, authentic quality using old-school methods, and both are enjoying a surge in popularity these days.

Nowhere is that connection more apparent than at Dogfish Head, which bills itself as producing “Analog Beer for the Digital Age.”

The quirky Delaware brewery has released beers honoring everyone from early bluesman Robert Johnson to jazz giant Miles Davis to Seattle rockers Pearl Jam.  Its annual Analog A-Go-Go is a combination cask beer festival and record swap.

And it was the official beer of Record Store Day earlier this month. In conjunction with that, it teamed with Crosley to produce a Dogfish-branded briefcase-style portable turntable with built-in speakers, which is sold through the brewery’s website and given away at special events.

One of those events lands in Spokane on Thursday at Jones Radiator. They’ll be spinning records through the evening, and around 9:30 p.m. will raffle one of the turntables, adorned with art by Marq Spusta, who’s done Dogfish Head labels and produced this year’s Record Store Day poster.  

And they’ll be pouring a pair of Dogfish Head beers: the always-popular 90 Minute IPA, and a liquid tribute to the Grateful Dead, an imperial pale ale dubbed American Beauty.

The special ingredient? Organic granola, of course.