Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Entrepreneurship from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery [Hardcover]

Sam Calagione (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 2005

Entrepreneurial dreams do come true! Starting with nothing more than a home brewing kit, Sam Calagione founded Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and made it America's fastest growing independent beer. This unconventional business story reveals how Calagione found success by dreaming big, working hard, and thinking differently-and how you can do it too.

"Rarely is a book as good as a beer but this one is. It's written with humor, humility, and passion, essential ingredients for any entrepreneur."
-Bob Guccione Jr. founder of Spin magazine and Gear magazine

"Brewing Up a Business will inspire both entrepreneurs and aspiring small business people to have the confidence in following their dreams."
-Jim Davis Chairman and CEO of New Balance

"Sam Calagione embodies the spirit of a true Delaware entrepreneur. Starting out as the smallest brewery in the nation, Sam's ambition, acute business sense, and vision have allowed Dogfish Head Craft Brewery to successfully enter an extremely competitive market as Dogfish Head continues to leave an indelible mark on the beer industry."
-Ruth Ann Minner Governor of Delaware

"Everything you want to know about succeeding in business you can learn from beer. At least you can if it's the remarkable story of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. Brewing Up a Business is like a 'how-to' manual for entrepreneurs. With humor, creativity, and wisdom, Sam Calagione has crafted a new kind of business book that's as unique as his great beer!"
-Joe Calloway author of Becoming a Category of One and Indispensable

Editorial Reviews

Review

For those who like their business advice mixed with tales of the trials and tribulations of starting a new business, this book will go down as smoothly as a pint of Immort Ale, one of Dogfish Head's signature brews. While chapters cover much tried-and-true territory, including entrepreneurship, marketing, sales, leadership, and employee relations, Calagione manages to keep the advice he dispenses fresh by relating it to his own often humorous experiences in starting what is now one of the fastest-growing breweries in the country. Stories of hand-delivering beer from a U-haul in dicey neighborhoods and securing labels with rubber bands after running out of glue attest to both the author's determination and his anything-goes entrepreneurial spirit. Solid writing and a no-nonsense style coupled with a welcome avoidance of business jargon make this an enjoyable and practical read for anyone either interested in the brewery business or thinking of creating his or her own start-up. Recommended for public libraries and large business/entrepreneurship collections.—Susan Hurst, Miami Univ. of Ohio, Oxford (Library Journal, May 1, 2005)

From the Inside Flap

This is the exhilarating success story of a man who really likes beer—so much so that he decided to make a business of it. Starting with nothing but a home brewing kit, Sam Calagione turned his entrepreneurial dream into a foamy reality and built the country's fastest growing brewery—Dogfish Head Craft Brewery. Brewing Up a Business is the enlightening and entertaining story of Dogfish and Calagione, of the power of unconventional thinking, and of the hard lessons every entrepreneur learns along the way.

In just a few years, Calagione grew Dogfish from a tiny Delaware-based operation into one of the country's most popular independent brews, distributed in twenty-nine states. Along with creating the fastest growing independent brewery, he has established a successful restaurant featuring wood-grilled food, and expanded his brand to include a line of spirits made at his distillery. Even without the benefit of an advertising and marketing budget, Dogfish's revenues have soared—increasing by more than 100% in 2003 alone. That kind of success might not be normal for most small businesses, but then again, there's nothing normal about Calagione and Dogfish.

From his attention-grabbing publicity stunts, as when he crossed the Delaware River in a homemade boat to introduce his beer to New Jersey, to the creation of such questionable concoctions as peppercorn and lavender flavored beer, doing things differently has been the key to Calagione's success. It hasn't always worked—few people really wanted peppercorn and lavender flavored beer after all—but this fearless entrepreneur learned quickly that you can't reap big rewards without taking big risks.

Straight from Calagione's mouth, Brewing Up a Business offers a real-world look at what entrepreneurship is really like. It's hard work and frustrating to be sure—from exploding fermentation tanks to selling t-shirts at truck stops for gas money, Calagione encountered all the trials and tribulations of starting and running a business—but it's been worth it. With business booming, Calagione could probably stay the course, play it safe, and focus on doing what he's doing. But why would he? As you'll learn in Brewing Up a Business, being an entrepreneur is much more than just a lot of hard work—it's a lot of fun too. There are new beers to brew, restaurants to open, and beer movies to make.

Dogfish is proof that entrepreneurial dreams do come true. And Calagione is proof that you don't need a million dollars in seed money or a Harvard MBA to make your business a reality. For anyone who has a dream, this is all the inspiration and motivation you need to get started brewing up your own business.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

Check out these recipes from Dogfish Head Craft Brewery [388kb PDF]

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (May 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471708682
• ISBN-13: 978-0471708681
• Product Dimensions: 1 x 6.3 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #490,068 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 46 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars more about sam than the brewery March 2, 2007

By AlchemistGeorge VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

The book is well named - its more about entrepreneurship, and not very much about the beer industry, and frankly, its about Sam, and Sam's business, and what Sam thinks about Sam's business. There is a great deal about Sam's incredibly brilliant product strategy - and it **is** a brilliant product strategy!

If you are interested in the brewing industry / business, there is not so much here.

The book is entertaining although not that informative, and reads like many new age business books. The founder has been tremendously successful. Suggest "beer school" if you want to learn about critical factors in brewing industry.

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Dogfish Head Recipe for Success September 16, 2006

By Bryan Carey TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am a big fan of Dogfish Head beer and when I found out that brewer and entrepreneur Sam Calagione wrote a book about his company I was anxious to read it to see if Calagione had any interesting tips on the business of brewing and how he has made the Dogfish Head brand practically a household name among both beer geeks and beer critics. What I discovered with this book is that Sam Calagione has some good advice to offer brewing/restaurant entrepreneurs and others who have a pressing urge to start their own company. He has tried many different things, and his penchant for the unusual has proven to be a great success and it forms the backbone of his business.

Calagione spends the majority of this book discussing Dogfish Head Brewing from the early days of formation all the way to the point of maturity. He talks about his own business model and how it has helped transform his company. He talks about everything from innovation to employee morale to profit sharing to community involvement. He shows how his model of success has worked for his type of business and how the same model can be applied to other types of businesses as well.

This book see- saws back and forth between business guide and autobiography but it leans more toward the business side of the equation. Calagione frequently offers up his own company as an example of which business tactics work and which do not. Calagione has achieved a great deal of success but he has the humility to admit that he has also made his share of mistakes. He points these out in the book where appropriate, showing how a misstep here and a miscalculation there added up to exponential problems down the road and what you, the fledgling business owner, can do to avoid making the same mistakes.

Sam Calagione offers some good, basic advice on starting and running a successful company. His writing style is easy to read and his approach to business is a little different from other books of the same genre. Business books can often get boring and tedious to read but this one manages to keep the reader's attention through its simplicity and its personable style. It can get a little bit repetitive from time to time but the advice offered is generally sound and what Calagione says makes good sense. Also, one needs to keep in mind that this book is intended more as a business book for a newly minted entrepreneur. More experienced professional will not find very much useful here. Its targeted audience is the new or soon- to- be- new- small business owner.

One small disappointment with this book is that it's a business guide more than anything else. The reason I say this is because I was hoping to find out more about the man behind Shelter Pale Ale and Chicory Stout and not just a book about starting and running a company. Calagione does share a few personal moments from his past, like his expulsion from private school; his passion for beer; the role his wife has played in his success; etc. But other than this, the book is more about business than anything else.

"Brewing up a Business" is, overall, a good book for the budding entrepreneur and for beer geeks of all stripes and colors. Sam Calagione writes well and he offers up a good deal of humor to keep the book from getting too serious. He has achieved a great deal of success with his Dogfish Head Brewing Company and he wants to share this success with small business owners everywhere. With the right passion, innovation, and drive, a small company can achieve greatness and Sam Calagione is a tribute to this fact.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars The Beer Moments are Good but the Business Aspects are So-So December 31, 2005

By J. Furiosi

Format:Hardcover

I remember waiting in a long line for a 2oz sample of the Worldwide Stout. As a beer fan, I recognize the creativity and richness of Dogfish Head's products whether it be 90 Minute IPA, Raison De'tre or Festiva Lentina. There are quite a few beers I still need to get my hands on.

If this book was limited to the description of the history of the company and its marketing strategies, I'd give it 5 stars. They are clearly experts at creating products their niche group of customers want and are adept at limiting qualities to create more demand. The description of "Randall the Enamel Animal" and stories of bottles exploding because the corks were to large definately appeal to beer geek crowd I belong to.

Where it falls short is when Calagione offers his advice on how to brew up a business. The resiliency he has shown by learning from mistakes is inspiring as well as the dedication he shows to his customers and workers. The emphasis on had work is similarly admirable. But the how to start and run a business tips are pretty straightforward and do not add much to already established mantras.

I like how he used Buddhism to describe how he is focused more on the doing than the materialistic aims of business. He admits to being somewhat ADD, and like the ADD nature of the book, he jumps to this idea but then jumps to another one. The book gets repititive at times as it repeats the ideas of catering to customers and workers over and over as if readers need conversion. The "We at Dogfish Head" sentences get a bit preachy sometimes. Also, Calagione should take into account that not each reader will be involved in business. "Your business" is repeated frequently.

For those who know nothing about a business, the descriptions of what forms a company's value, how a board operates, and how to reward employees can be helpful. But there is nothing really advanced here other than practical tips. It is also sketchy how Calagione got the money to start his business. The book jumps from Calagione having a successful home brew at a party with Ricki Lake to his company already being started. Until he provided some details near the end, I consistently wondered how he paid for the startup.

Clearly, the book is directed towards people interested in business but it is more effective when it tackles topics beer geeks like myself want to read about. The business aspects are a bit preachy and I'm not sure the "oft centered" crowd wants to hear Lee Iacocca or Donald Trump speak. We want the humorous tales, the struggles and the beer.