I'm just about through with Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione's business-advice book, Brewing Up A Business. Never being one to drift anywhere near the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, this is one of the few business books I've read. It is clearly aimed at those involved in small business or thinking about getting into it, and it offers a smattering of lessons on understanding your consumer and guerrilla marketing. Given the strong following for their beers, non-business oriented beer geeks might get a kick out of it if you don't mind the constant reminders of Calagione's sales philosophy.
The book is fortunately not loaded with buzz words but they make an appearance in between fun personal stories of crashing beer delivery trucks and exploding fermenters. It is an amazingly fast read, especially for generally slow readers like myself. He got his degree in English and it shows. The book is also chopped up into short sections that are tailor made for today's news-bite hungry world.
I tend to agree with guy on most of his sales philosophy although I'm more of a fan of keeping things local rather than spreading quickly around the country as they have. But coming from little ol' Delaware, I don't blame him for looking beyond the borders. Here in Chicago, we're lucky to have lots of mouths and livers to satisfy in close proximity.
Calagione was just in town doing a tasting at Sheffield's of his beers alongside cheese from the about-to-close The Cheese Stands Alone up in Lincoln Ave. I didn't make it over but I'm sure many of the combos went well since Dogfish is known for including odd herbs, fruits and spices in their ales that could counterbalance cheese flavors nicely.
I'm a big fan of their wide range of beers and have an essentially fond memory of tasting their 60 minutes IPA for the first time in Miami Beach. While I waited in the rental car with our napping kids outside a natural foods store, my wife ventured inside to fetch a few things including some brew for daddy. South Florida is known for many things, but I wasn't finding much good beer on the trip. Not knowing what brands they would have, I asked for 'something something' pale ale leaving my fate in the wind. You've got to understand that with two kids under 3, we spent much of the trip by the beach and the pool and the opportunities for any adult debauchery were pretty slim. But later that night while the rest of Miami Beach drank cocktails in cafes and clubs, I sat on the balcony of the hotel room looking out at the ocean with the joyous taste of hops on my tongue. And all was good.
