Daydream Playbook Entry #26

In the words of Dogfish Head Founder & Brewer, Sam Calagione, “Being in a small business is like being in a small state.” Sometimes you must get scrappy and really flex those creative muscles to stand out in the crowd. In this excerpt, learn how Sam built up the Dogfish Head brand to get it on the craft brewing map – all while boasting some Delaware state pride, of course.

"A few months before Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats opened I was still trying to decide what brewing equipment I should purchase for the pub. Despite my lack of finances, I had delusions that I could open my brewery with a full-sized system, and so I shopped around to find one I could afford. There was an equipment broker in Texas with a line on a good used system, and I spent an hour or so on the phone with him going over all of the details and features. As we wrapped up our conversation, he promised to send some pictures and spec sheets on the equipment, so I told him where to send it. When I said I was in Delaware, he asked as nice as can be, “Delaware? Now, what state is that in again?”

Being in a small business is like being in a small state. It is difficult to get the larger world familiar with you. You might say Delaware has a branding problem. Branding is the process of moving beyond what your company does and on to what your company stands for. Delaware has beautiful beaches, corporate law advantages, and tax-free shopping, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it stands for anything greater than the sum of those parts. I don’t want to get started on all of the reasons why I think Delaware is a great state, but I remember taking personally that this guy didn’t even know Delaware was a state.

I felt somewhat vindicated almost 10 years later when the Wall Street Journal ran an article with a map titled “Beer Nation,” which showed a cartoon of North America. In St. Louis, Anheuser-Busch’s hometown, there was a drawing of a Clydesdale horse; in Sam Adam’s hometown of Boston, it showed a drawing of a patriot. Further down the eastern seaboard it showed a mutated dog with a fish head next to the words “Milton, Delaware.” Regardless of whether the guy from Texas would ever know it, Dogfish Head was doing its best to put Delaware on the American brewing map. It’s not exactly the map they hand out with your car rental, but it meant a lot to me. Next to the picture it called our town the ‘home of extreme brewing.” Dogfish Head had been making off-centered beer for off-centered people for nearly a decade when this map was published. But that is probably the first time that many people outside of the craft beer community were introduced to Dogfish Head as a brand. That’s because the map illustrated what we had set out to do – make beer – and what we stand for – extreme brewing."