B
eer is a catalyst for community building. At our brewery, Dog-
fish Head, my wife Mariah and I have tried to show our kids that
we make fun, creative, off-centered ales that connect us to awe-
some people such as the Grateful Dead and our coworkers. We
hoped one of them might be interested in carrying on this tra-
dition, but we didn’t want to put that weight on their shoulders.
We expected our kids to get summer jobs by the time they were 14.
Our daughter, Grier, has chosen not to work at Dogfish Head, whereas
Sammy started running food at our pub in 2015. After he told us he
loved biology and chemistry, we arranged for him to brew a nonal-
coholic birch beer at Boothbay Craft Brewery, which is near Dogfish
Head, Maine, where I spent my summers growing up.
He apprenticed in the Dogfish brewpub’s microbiology lab in
2017 and, the next summer, asked to apprentice at our brewery. My
wife and I told him that it wasn’t a budgeted position. He neededA HOME-
BREWING
PHILOSOPHY
Calagione and his son,
Sammy, brew a beer
together at their home
in Lewes, Delaware.44 March/April 2020