Daydream Playbook Entry #1
I moved to NYC the day I graduated from college with dreams of becoming a writer in the vein of two of my favorites that ever prowled those same mean streets: Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. I was taking classes in the MFA department at Columbia and paying rent by bartending and waiting tables across the street at Nacho Mamas Burrito. That name doesn't convey the fact that this joint was one of the OG craft beer epicenters in the Big Apple in the early 90s. My first two shift beers were Chimay Red and Sierra Nevada Celebration. My mind was blown by the diversity of flavors and styles across the spectrum of commercial brewing and from every corner of the world. Within months of first trying those beers I began homebrewing in my tiny apartment. Within months of my first homebrew batch I quit going to classes at Columbia and began spending my days in the New York Public Library writing the business plan for my brewery, Dogfish Head. On the first page of the plan I wrote down this Emerson quote as the raison d'etre for the creativity journey we would be going on at Dogfish Head.
“Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore it if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”
On the second page I wrote, "Dogfish Head will be the first commercial brewery committed to brewing the majority of our beers outside the Reinheitsgebot incorporating culinary ingredients into our recipes in addition to barley yeast home and water." That statement was true when we opened in 1995 as the smallest brewing in America and it's still true today when Dogfish is a top 30 craft beer brand out of over 10,000 breweries operating in America. Around the same time, I realized I was way more fired up about brewing questionable experiments in my apartment than I was about finishing my degree. So, I did what any sensible person would do … I quit school. On paper, it looked like a terrible idea. In real life, it felt exactly right.
That decision dropped me onto a road with zero guardrails and no GPS. I started homebrewing and tossing stuff into the brew kettle that was definitely considered off-centered in the brewing landscape of the mid-90s. Cherry. Chicory. Coffee. Maple syrup. Juniper berries. Some batches turned out delicious and some were less than delicious but we kept pushing the boundaries and forging our own path. Building Frankenstein-ed equipment out of whatever we could scrounge. Rewriting state laws when we learned it was still illegal to brew beer in Delaware. None of that was the easy route. It was the road less traveled, and it was the only one that made sense to us. With the help of a small tight knit family of passionate and energetic co-workers we were on our way. My dream job aspirations shifted from wanting to write the next Great American Novel to wanting to design the Next Great American Beer. Our group of co-timers had a diverse set of talents and diverse backgrounds. Our differences made us stronger but what we shared was a passion to create something that had never existed before in the word of brewing.
That’s a big reason the Grateful Dead have always been such a north star for me. They didn’t chase hits or shortcuts. They trusted the jam, trusted the community, and trusted the long way around. Each musician in the band came from different musical background. Jerry came from Bluegrass, Pigpen from the Blues, Bobby from Rock, Phil from Jazz and the list goes on and on. Night after night, they let the music wander and believed it would find its way somewhere honest.
-Sam