Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Beer from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

Product Description

Updated business wisdom from the founder of Dogfish Head, the nation's fastest growing independent craft brewery

Starting with nothing more than a home brewing kit, Sam Calagione turned his entrepreneurial dream into a foamy reality in the form of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, one of America's best and fastest growing craft breweries.

In this newly updated Second Edition, Calagione offers a deeper real-world look at entrepreneurship and what it takes to operate and grow a successful business. In several new chapters, he discusses Dogfish's most innovative marketing ideas, including how social media has become an integral part of the business model and how other small businesses can use it to catch up with bigger competitors. Calagione also presents a compelling argument for choosing to keep his business small and artisanal, despite growing demand for his products.

• Updated to offer a more complete look at what it takes to keep a small business booming
• An inspiring story of renegade entrepreneurialism and the rewards of dreaming big, working hard, and thinking unconventionally
• Shows how to use social media to reach new customers and grow a business

For any entrepreneur with a dream, Brewing Up a Business, Second Edition presents an enlightening, in-depth look at what it takes to succeed on their own terms.

Q&A with Author Sam Calagione

Author Sam Calagione

When did you start Dogfish Head Brewery, and what was your inspiration?
We opened Dogfish Head in 1995. At that time, we were the smallest commercial brewery in the country. We wanted to make beers that weren’t referencing commercially dominant styles and beers that incorporate exotic ingredients from around the globe. Or as we call it: Off-centered ales for off-centered people.

What effect has being the host of Brew Masters on Discovery Channel had on the brewery and/or the Dogfish Head brand?
We’ve been very fortunate that demand for our off-centered ales has been beyond our ability to make them for the last eight years. So the show hasn’t helped us sell more beer but it has helped spread the word about Dogfish and about the craft brewing renaissance happening around the globe right now. We’ve had a blast doing the Brew Masters show, and I am most proud of the moments in it that celebrate how talented and passionate all of my co-workers are as they do their jobs. Also, the show does a great job of demystifying the brewing process and makes it approachable for people just getting into all of the amazing and diverse beers that are being made by small indie breweries now.

What can readers expect to get out of this new updated and revised edition of Brewing Up a Business?
There’s still great stuff on what we learned at Dogfish as we started our business, but there is now more content devoted to ideas we’ve incorporated to grow our business. With chapters on utilizing social media (my wife Mariah is the queen of this at Dogfish) and differentiating your product or service in a crowded marketplace.

What’s in store for the future of Dogfish Head?
Lots of new and exotic beers, for sure. There will also be a Brew Masters episode centered around a brewpub we are working on that will be on a rooftop in New York City called Eataly. The restaurant will be run by Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich and Dogfish. Birra Del Borgo (Rome) and La Baladin (Turin) are the contributing breweries to the project. We’ve expanded our brewery and our website. We plan to build a bigger distillery and open another pub in 2012. Mostly, we just want to keep putting the where in Delaware and the mental in experimental.

Top Reviews

Too Many Pep Talks for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
by Peter M. Beck (3 out of 5 stars)
January 19, 2019

I had high hopes for this book, given that I consider Dogfish Head one of the two best brewpub chains in America (the other being Mountain Sun in Colorado). I expected the book to focus on Sam Caligione's experience creating Dogfish Head, but his story is buried in bromides for would-be entrepreneurs. This leads to a disjointed, incomplete, redundant and non-chronological story. This is a shame because Sam is a good writer with an even better story to tell.

One detail that I found curious: Sam mentions Donald Trump (I assume his book the "Art of the Deal") as one of his chief inspirations (p. 26). Really??? I had just entered U.C. Berkeley as a card-carrying Republican when the book came out and I assumed it was about a buffoonish used car salesman. The author of the book, Tony Schwartz, has admitted that every deal he wrote about was a sham. Harvard's negotiation journal just announced that not a single article has referenced the book in the past ten years!
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The book is mostly about been an entrepreneur and building a business, any business.
by Amazon Customer (3 out of 5 stars)
September 6, 2018

I must admit that looking at the book title after reading it, it does hint that it is about how to build a business, any business, that happened to be written by a successful entrepreneur from the brewing business. My wrong interpenetration of the book title led me to think it will either consist of a bottom-line tips of the do and don't in the brewery business, or give a detailed and consistent story-line of how Dogfish became. While there is some sort of high-level story line about Dogfish head, for the do and don't an exhaustive cherry picking is required.

Having said that, with Dogfish head the world is defiantly a better place...Cheers!
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Great Book for Business Leadership
by Javier Casillas (5 out of 5 stars)
October 12, 2017

Great Book for any person wanting insight into entrepreneurship. It is a great laugh on several occasions too. Sam is a hero to us in the homebrew world and it is really cool to have him right alongside me in the business world too!
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A Great Read for the Small Businessperson
by Danica Olivo (5 out of 5 stars)
March 8, 2017

I LOVED this book. It is both entertaining and informative. Sam Calagione is a great writer, and you feel like you know him by the time you finish the book. He offers some wonderful advice and tells great stories. I highly recommend this book for anyone who either owns a small business or wishes to start one. Does not have to be a brewery...
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Very thoughtful
by Mark Everett (5 out of 5 stars)
September 4, 2013

The book provoked a great deal of thoughts for me. I enjoyed the writer's wit, the recounting of his experiences, and the concepts/values he proposed are good advice for anyone to follow regardless of one's vocation.

I had read other's reviews prior to purchase and understand their reticence to give a greater rating. Those persons, I suspect, were hoping for a very nuts and bolts how-to guide on brewery start-up. They were disappointed. I did, however, find the substance within this volume applicable to Business and to brewing. Sam's concepts are grounded in fundamental values designed for the success of persons willing to walk a narrow (albeit unconventional) path.

I find myself wanting to know more about the writer and what is more, to Know this interesting man.
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It's a good book to read
by Chris C. (4 out of 5 stars)
August 13, 2017

It's a good book to read, and has good advice, but it is not an instruction manual for opening a brewery.
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Kept me glued
by Steve Weatherbie (5 out of 5 stars)
December 14, 2017

Out of the half dozen or more brewing books I own this was the easiest to read and related to. I thought that Business For Punks would be my favorite, but this one ended up being it so far.
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Sam brings off-centeredness to life.
by Steven Matos (5 out of 5 stars)
July 11, 2013

I absolutely love this book. I had been considering all these different books about owning a business and the technical know how of how to run a business, until I saw this book. Sam Calagione has been an inspiration to me even before I had read this book so maybe I'm bias. Its well written and organized. It is not a verbatim guide as to how he owned and operates his business but its definitely good practices and great philosophy for any business owner. Give it a read!
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Nice on Dogfish history,
by Vidal (4 out of 5 stars)
November 28, 2017

Nice book on Sam and his Maria, working hard to get the brewpub going etc, a little to much on business side ,and frankly not to interesting, Sam is better when he tells stories from the brewery floor than the marketing office..other than that, a nice read
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No matter what your goals are in brewing you cannot go wrong with this read.
by J. Plourde (4 out of 5 stars)
September 28, 2013

Sam's book reads like a good story because that is what it is. He is telling you about his journey from a home brewer to a commercial brewer. It is a good story and fun to read but if you are not careful you may find yourself learning something from it as well. This may be a book about brewing beer but it is also a book that provides insight on what life can throw your way and how one can overcome the obstacles and succeed. We can all learn a little something in that area I am sure.

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