Grateful Dead and new beer celebrate 'long strange trip' together

Dogfish Head has released its new Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale nationwide to coincide with the Delaware-based brewery's 30th anniversary and the iconic American band's founding 60 years ago.

Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale is available in six packs of 12-ounce cans at major grocery store chains throughout the country, Sam Calagione, Dogfish Head's founder, told Fox News Digital.

Dogfish Head's first Grateful Dead-inspired beer was American Beauty, an imperial pale ale. "American Beauty" was the name of the Grateful Dead's 1970 album that included the song "Truckin,'" the highest-charting single in the band's history.

Calagione said a lot of the band's fans - i.e., "Deadheads" - "were asking us to bring back a Dogfish Head and Grateful Dead collaboration." 

The result was the Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale.

The newest Grateful Dead beer is juicier than it is bitter and contains honey and oat granola in the recipe, Calagione also said.

The Grateful Dead is one of Calagione's favorite bands. 

He recalled being 12 years old and passing by an independent record store in Massachusetts when he first saw the cover of "Shakedown Street." He said it had a "cool sort of gigolo-looking cartoon character swinging through the streets" and knew he wanted "a piece of that," so he used his allowance money to buy it. 

Calagione has befriended members of the band, he said, and had the support of Rhino, the Grateful Dead's record label, and David Lemieux, the band's longtime archivist and historian.

This is the first time that Dogfish Head has used the "Steal Your Face" skull graphic from the band's 1976 live album cover - which Calagione said "is by far and away the Grateful Dead's most recognized iconography."

The beer is intended to appeal to "Deadheads of all ages," Calagione said, and "already the reception and traction that it's getting is something that we have not seen for a new beer launch in decades."

Calagione attributes it to a "grassroots" marketing campaign that's helping to "really get the word right out directly to the beer lovers and music lovers."

Dogfish Head's Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale is available at retailers such as Kroger, Publix, Wegmans and Whole Foods.