Dale's Pale Ale at Oskar Blues in Lyons was started as a "grown-up" version of one of my homebrew recipes. My homebrew pale was, "GASP", actually based upon a very tasty West-Coast commercial pale that was heavy on the Columbus hops - to which I added a Centennial (what else) final finish for my homebrew - and ultimately Dale's Pale Ale.
People used to ask why it was called Dale's Pale Ale. Well, since my name rhymes not with Pale or Ale it seemed that Dale was a much better choice. Those who dig deeper might note that Dale's legal first name just doesn't rhyme with anything - and its typical nickname "Dick" doesn't really appeal as a product name.
People also asked why it's such a BIG beer. It was actually a test beer for a "new" brewing system and at the last minute a bag of pale malt was added because the system efficiency was thought to be quite low. Amazingly, I brewed Dale's Pale Ale for several years with essentially no changes to the original "test" recipe. Pretty cool huh!
Want the recipe? Care to brew your own version? I'll be happy to post that too. Please be patient - I'm slow getting this page put together.