Better Beer Authority interview with Sam Calagione

Because he is ...

 

IMHO DFH is not one, but sometimes there are breweries quite worthy of being "put down" for a variety of reasons - dickhead ownership/management, poor quality, wtf pricing, not responding to consumer feedback. If somebody's not doing it right, we should definitely call them on it, and publicly so others aren't fooled.

 

I for one am a huge fan of Sam and DFH. Yea they make a few beers I dont care for but they also make a few beers I really do love. Anyone who has ever met Sam and spoke with him knows this guy is the man.

 

Good one, guys. Liked the interview, Sam is always fun to listen to when he's talkin' beer.

Choice Sam quotes-

"90% of the BeerAdvocate community is awesome and they're doing God's work to put small breweries like Dogfish (and particularly smaller now) onto the National radar of good beer. But there is that minority component of 'eating their young', yet they weren't really even 'parents' when the craft beer movement started."

"I feel like maybe these folks don't have the context to see the contributions our brewery made before they got into our community- Probably before they were 21- So I don't hold that against them- I want to help make sure everyone's informed as to what our real path in this industry was."

 

I think there are two main problems here.

One...some people on this site, which is pretty typical with ALL internet forum/message boards, use the mask of the internet to be excessively negative and...well....jerks, more intent on bashing and insulting, without offering much in terms of constructive criticism, giving little consideration or respect to the impact their comments can have on a brewery's public image. This is someone's passion, so respect that. Also, unfortunately, there are some idiots on here that base their criticisms more on territorial pissing and trade value than honest perspective.

Two...from what I've observed, brewers tend to be extremely thin-skinned. Working in the design industry, I was trained to take and respond to criticism as a tool for improved design and a better final product. Is a building I design less my child than a beer someone brews? No, my heart and passion is in every detail, but I've learned that perspective is paramount when it comes to improvement, and more than I care about my ego, I care about creating the best possible solution. Taste is subjective, no matter how tuned you think your palette is, if you're goal is to create the best possible beer that consumers will love, all perspectives are valid. Not to say there is no place for ego, as some people are just very good at what they do, and no matter how good a beer they create, some will not like it. So while criticism is important for improvement, it's also important to know when to ignore versus respond.

ok...rant over.

 

It'd be awesome to meet Sam. If my schedule permits it, a friend and I are going to drive to the brewpub this summer. Hopefully on a weekend he happens to be around. Gotta give the guy respect.

 

Only thing that bugged me was it was assuming if you only joined BA in the last 5 to 10 years you somehow had limited knowledge of "craft" beer. I may be old but I still "learn" about beer everyday. Not that he meant it as a put down, I think? or was it a jab at time spend on BA? , or more of a rant against the younger folks lack of knowledge maybe?

I still find it funny to have been on the net before it was cool (late 1980's), only to find I not seen every site of every hobby of mine until lately...as time goes on I find myself posting less and less, the new has worn off I guess. Kind of why I sigh at all the so called "new" beer inventions.....

 

I think you're reading into it a bit too much- simply he's saying it's easy for n00bs to dismiss DFH as tired or old if they don't know the history of boundary-pushing that DFH has.

 

that's how i read it, too. threads like that can be fun at times, as i don't think everyone has to cheerlead every single brewery, but they go overboard into bashing everything of note. i think some balance must be struck between pointing out which breweries got the movement going and continue to push boundaries vs. newer hype trains that, in the big picture, aren't that good and won't ever be a-list breweries.

and, as sam thinks, the bashing of larger breweries seems to come mostly from new people who are getting into craft within the past year. it is incumbent upon older ba's to teach positive attitudes, but i've noticed not many veterans post anymore.

that being said, sam really has to learn how to take criticism, and also not to take ba threads too seriously.

 

Yeah, I thought his response to the last DFH bashing thread (the one referenced in the vid) was a bit uncharacteristic- he'd always been the coolest/calmest/most cheerful dude in the room.

 

well I did use question marks, glad you see that way, I agree with you. Kind of surprises me he would even care what BA think in general. Some of us are just happy with good beer, others are on the edge of something else.

 

Haha, don't worry, I was mostly joking, although you did look a little bleary-eyed. Good interview though.

 

It's impossible to ask a person everything in a 20 minute interview. I only got about half way through the questions that I wanted to ask as it was. But, I was wondering if anyone had any questions that they wished I would've asked Sam?

I'm asking because we might have some more interviews coming up and I want to know what other beer enthusiasts such as yourselves would like to ask the brewers. I'd like to use your feedback to help improve future shows.

Thanks,

James

 

when it comes to big [craft] breweries, it's simply a numbers game. if more people can drink your beer, more people can have an opinion about it, and thus there will be more people who don't like it. If you were able to gauge percentages I think the perception would be different. But like I said in the SN thread that was posted recently and as I said on a post about Sam Adams: I'm rarely hearing that people don't like them just because they've grown so I wish that argument would stop being made.

 

It's good to get specific with some questions:
1. What their favorite beer from another brewer is (they should be humble enough to have one, at least).
2. What's their least favorite beer out of all the ones that they sell commercially or have ever made.
3. What their favorite style is.
4. What was the beer that turned them on to craft/brewing.

 

Alright people need to stop being so arrogant and snobby. DFH has been around way longer and no one is addressing that point that sam made. If their recipe's haven't changed, the only thing that has is the customer. People are all about the "rare" beers. It seems like the rarer a beer is the higher it's rating on both sites. It's like people are a bunch of beer hipsters. Example:
"what are you drinking man?" Arrogant Snob "oh it's really obscure you've probably never heard of it go back to drinking your dogfish head or sam adams" I don't think brewery's like dfh are over rated at all. In fact it was them that turned me and many people on to craft beer. I think people need to keep themselves in check. Also they need to stop being damn hipsters.

 

so selling millions of dollars in beer produced by your brewery is not getting "credit" for good solid beers? on-line beer geek nation wields some power in the marketplace but at the end of the day if you're selling a crap ton of beer you're doing pretty good no matter what some random has to say on the Internets.

 

You sound pretty hip.

 

I do understand this. A beer being mainstream doesn't necessarily mean its good or the best. Look at BMC. Luckily big craft is the exception, but I just meant they don't get talked about as much. Looking at the sales tells a different story and you're right that that is "credit."

 

I was with James during this interview and I have a few takeaways. First he seemed very loyal to his staff/coworkers and feels obligated to make DFH work so they can still be employed. Second, the efforts they go into making their beer. Building the Palo tank, importing ingrediants for Te Henket, shipping graps for Noble Rot, I am sure the list goes on and on. He and other craft brewers are true pioneers. The have written 8 pieces of legislation so they can even have a business. They are not alone, look at DC Brau in Washington, DC. They had to lobby the DC government so they can brew, sell their beer from breweries, and are in the process of changing growler laws. The BA is a great commuity and I have learned a ton about beer from these threads and forums, and we all seem to be on a single goal, to drink better beer. Love or hate their beers, DFH, and others like Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams, Anchor... deserve all the respect in the world for what they have done in the beer world.