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Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Entrepreneurship from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
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 g...more
"Rarely is a book as g...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
October 6th 2006
by John Wiley & Sons
(first published May 5th 2005)
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Sam Calgione is definitely one of my heroes and as an entrepreneur myself this was a must read. I have been a homebrewer for a couple of years and i have always dreamt of what it would be like to own and operate my own brewery. Sam's book is not a recipe for success but the story about how he started and where he is today. I really dont feel like I learned alot but I agree with much of what was said. Calgione has a very hands-on approach to business and I am very impressed with his principle...more
Like most people will tell you this is a book about business (and really marketing) and not about brewing or a brewery. Sam Calagione is a salesman and a marketer more than businessman or a brewer and everything he leaves his signature on lets you know that. This book is filled with stories and advice on brand building and doesn't focus as much on anything else. The blurb states "Starting with nothing more than a home brewing kit, Sam Calagione founded Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and made it...more
I thought this would be filled with great stories about the brewery. It is, but there are few and far between. It is written in the tone of a self-help book - endlessly positive for the small business owner, not a beer geek.
For the beer geek, due to limited capital started with a glorified home brew equipment - 10 gallon brewery for the first year. This allowed them to experiment with 30 different brews the first year. But tremendously labor intensive. Further, quality contro...more
For the beer geek, due to limited capital started with a glorified home brew equipment - 10 gallon brewery for the first year. This allowed them to experiment with 30 different brews the first year. But tremendously labor intensive. Further, quality contro...more
An inspiring look into the founding of the Dogfish Head Brewery written by the founder himself; Sam Caligione. Sam gives a first hand look into how he has built Dogfish head into the successful brand that it today and the challenges that he faced along the way. After reading this book, Sam proves himself to be someone you would really want to sit down and have a beer with. A must read for fans of Dogfish Head beer, and aspiring entrepreneurs. You can also view his show "Brew Masters"...more
Sam Calagione is my hero and this books lays out the story of his founding Dogfish Head Brewery, his obstacles, and his overall business philosophy. There is some really insightful stuff in here that can be transferred to any business (the importance of sales, the importance of hiring effective people), though there were a few passages where Calagione's seemed like he was still 18 and not 35. That said, he is obviously a great businessman and I would work for him in a heartbeat.
Jon
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Sam Calagione turns out to be a pretty good writer. Those expecting a lot of practical advice on starting up a small business or a brewery might want to turn elsewhere. Those looking for a text that addresses larger issues, contains amusing and personal stories about being involved in a startup/small businesses, and something that might make you feel hopeful but also aware of the amount of energy required will be happy.
This book is an autobiography of Sam Calagione and the micro-brewery he founded named "dogfish head", along with his thoughts on anyone thinking of establishing an "alt-commerce" business.
I found the idea of beneficial inefficiency intriguing. he went on to explain that by spending more money on the highest quality ingredients he is intentionally creating value to his product.
I found the idea of beneficial inefficiency intriguing. he went on to explain that by spending more money on the highest quality ingredients he is intentionally creating value to his product.
This is probably like a 2.5 so I rounded up to give this 3 stars. It's a business book, so it's predictably dry and technical in a few places, but it's by Sam Calagione, so it's much less so than most other business books. He is a really likable, smart guy, and is a great person to look up to for anyone interested in brewing or owning any kind of small business. It was interesting to hear his take on the types of things I'm sure many business go through. Also, it REALLY made me want a 90 min IPA...more
Gader
rated it
·
review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Beer lovers and businessmen alike.. and Mike Terry
Dogfish Head beer is awesome and this book is no different. Being an English major before taking up beer brewing, Sam Calagione had no problem writing this book. The first half of the book is hilarious as he recounts his days getting in trouble at a private school and his first job at a beer bar in NYC with his friend Ricki Lake tasting his homebrews. The rest of the book goes on to tell the story starting a beer brewery...from repealing the prohibition laws still on the books in Delaware, to...more
Even though Sam Calagione is my man-crush, I have to be objective and give this book only 4 stars instead of 5. The reason is that, although it's an awesome book, I was looking for business advice a little more specific to starting a brewery. He gives some really good generic business advice and uses his brewery as examples, but I wish he would have gone into more detail about how he started his brewery. I learned a lot from this book, it just wasn't the home run I was expecting.
This was an OK book. I feel like when I picked it up I'd be reading a book that would help in the pursuit of opening up a brewpub. What I did learn, in fact, was how Sam Calagione loves himself and everything he has done with his own brewpub/brewery, Dogfish Head. There were a few things I could take away from this, but overall, I was disappointed. Plus, many of the pointers Calagione made were repeated over and over and over and over again. Thanks, Sam!
Finally, I would say that Mr. Ca...more
Finally, I would say that Mr. Ca...more
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Calagione walks through his humble beginnings of his vision and brewery. Some of the pages read like a business book, but who cares, it's still a good story.
Well worth the read, a bit wishy-washy when it comes to discussing practicle business but a great journal about starting a business from scratch.
Not a bad book, but I expected quite some more insights on the brewing business. Probably that my expectations were not right.
Great practical advice for anyone thinking about going into business, easy to read and appreciate for any beer lover.
Interesting story about what it takes to run an artisan business.
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Great ideas, really bad editing
Excellent entrepreneurial book written in a way where you feel like Sam is informally speaking with you. Tons of good insights that only a person who has done it can give. No theory here.
I big focus of the book is how to differentiate yourself from very large and established competitors in your industry like he did with Budweiser and others.
I big focus of the book is how to differentiate yourself from very large and established competitors in your industry like he did with Budweiser and others.
Raquel
rated it
·
review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
beer lovers and entrepreneurs
Recommended to Raquel by:
I found it randomly at Barnes and Noble
It is not your boring and typical business biography book. Sam Calagione did a remarkable job writing his book with imagery and real-life stories that easily relates to any entrepreneur. Very entertaining book and would recommend it to anyone with a kindred spirit and a passion for beer.
Parts of this book were great and others were not so great. I am starting to think all entrepreneurship books are equal. I was more interested in the stories Calagione had to tell rather than the typical MVVG/leadership business minutiae (which is, by the way, his favorite word). It took some effort to finish before I had to return it to the library. Sam seems like a interesting and intelligent person and I would be interested in indulging in the Dogfish Head experience.
Enlightening!
Dogfish Head produces one of the best beers I've ever had and to read about the amount of compassion, thought, and ingenuity that went into this product makes me love it even more.
Even if you're not really thinking about going into the beer-making business specifically, this book is still a great read about what it takes to be an entrepreneur and the obstacles along the way.
Dogfish Head produces one of the best beers I've ever had and to read about the amount of compassion, thought, and ingenuity that went into this product makes me love it even more.
Even if you're not really thinking about going into the beer-making business specifically, this book is still a great read about what it takes to be an entrepreneur and the obstacles along the way.
Overall pretty good if you're a fan of the brewery. I probably would have liked it better if I actually was a business-owner or entrepreneur, but some of the information was helpful and can be applied to any company/work organization. Some of the chapters were a bit dry and repetitive, but overall it was well-written and Sam has some pretty good stories.
About half of this book is a great business story. The other half is advice about starting your own small business. I felt like the stories and the advice could have been integrated better. But, even so, I wasn't looking for advice, so that part wasn't really all that interesting to me. Still worth a read for the history of Dogfish Head Brewing.
Decent book for inspiring entrepreneurial pursuits. Also good for learning more about the Dogfish Head brewery. I found it interesting and it mostly kept my attention. I think it would be good reading for an entrepreneur looking for ideas or a beer enthusiast looking for more about how the beer industry works.
I didn't finish this. It grew to be more a collection of business exploits written with a self-satisfied smugness.
I will probably keep this book around to reference from time to time as I try to figure my way around my own business venture.
It's not really the "how to" book I was led to believe, more like a "how I did it".
I will probably keep this book around to reference from time to time as I try to figure my way around my own business venture.
It's not really the "how to" book I was led to believe, more like a "how I did it".
I didn't actually finish this. It's more of an inspirational or even a how to book on entrepreneurship which would be great if I were an entrepreneur but I'm really just a beer drinker. Maybe I'll go back to it someday.
Even if you don't like beer, the entrepreneurial insights in this book are fantastic. It gives excellent insights into the kind of commitment and attitude it takes to start a successful business and make it thrive.
Reading this book only made me love Dogfish Head even more than I did before.
Reading this book only made me love Dogfish Head even more than I did before.
One of my all-time favorite books. Sam Calagione's story is an inspiration to people that want to own their own business and a model of how to treat your employees and just conduct yourself in general for people that are lucky enough to own their own business.
Not as entertaining as I thought it would be. The tidbits about real life and events were really good. However, Calagione imploring people to read books to learn how to open a business made me want to slap him.
I enjoyed seeing Sam's somewhat unconventional but down-to-earth philosophies on how he started and runs his business. Nothing too deep here but a fun read and some good practical advice for any business.
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