10 Things You Didn't Know About Dogfish Head

By Alison Herman

Jul 24, 2013

Dogfish Head prides itself on making “off-centered ales for off-centered people,” so it’s little surprise that its backstory is chock full of more weird details than you’ll find at your average craft brewery. Many fans are intimately familiar with Dogfish’s catalogue of gamechanging suds, from Hot Thoup!, made with carrot juice and ginger, to Midas Touch, a wine-like beer using ingredients found inside the tomb of King Midas. But what do you know about founder Sam Calagione’s wild high school days, or the time he rowed a six pack 20 miles from Delaware to New Jersey to promote his new production brewery?

With help from the good folks at Dogfish themselves (including its “off-centered storyteller,” Justin Williams, who officially has the best job ever), we dug deep to unearth some of the most intriguing lore from the brewery’s nearly two-decade long history. From the origins of the Steampunk Treehouse on its Milton, DE campus to the fate of a beer cooked up with human spit, here are the most bizarre, hilarious, and just plain interesting factoids from one of the country’s most popular microbreweries.

Next time you’re drinking a glass of Noble Rot at the bar, regale your beer buddies with these little-known Dogfish Head facts.

Founder Sam Calagione was kind of a renegade in high school.

Delaware had to literally change its laws for Dogfish to open its doors.

90 Minute IPA was the brewery's first continually hopped beer, predating 60 Minute.

The company's conference room is actually a Steampunk Treehouse.

Not all of Dogfish Head's promotions have been successful.

Even Dogfish Head's brewing vessels are hardcore.

Calagione's first beer was home-brewed in his NYC kitchen—and Ricki Lake was there to try it.

Dogfish Head’s office parties are probably better than yours.

Calagione's modeling career didn't quite end in New York.