His name has featured prominently in the publicity for the biggest week in New Zealand beer and there is an entire camera crew from the Discovery Channel following him around. Despite this, many Kiwis will be unaware just who this fine man is.
Basically, he is a former bartender who got a taste for micro-brewery beer while working in New York. He used his university studies to put together a seemingly crazy business plan to start the first ever brewpub in Delaware, USA. Dogfish Head opened in 1995 and has been making off-centred beers for off-centred people ever since. The company is often reported as one of America’s fastest growing micro-breweries, though with over 100 staff it would be amongst the biggest brewery operations in New Zealand.
I first saw Sam at the World Beer Cup in San Diego a little over two years ago. At every event he was surrounded by crowds wanting his attention. People were brushing aside Garret Oliver just to get closer to him. * Sam’s sessions were amongst the best attended mainly because he is charismatic, credible, passionate and, perhaps most importantly, makes great beer. I’ve raved about some of his brews in an earlier post titled “Fizzy yellow beer drinking ninnies need not read on.”
He was the captain of the beer team in last night’s Tussle for the Table, a dinner where brewers and wine makers competed to see who could best match their beverage of choice with a plate of food from Ruth Pretty. Under his expert guidance, the beer team prevailed four courses to two, 689 total points versus 627. In addition to his captaincy duties, Sam gave a short keynote speech. Here are some of his quotes I recorded in my “I’m a real journalist” notebook: **
Sam marvelled at ““how far beer has evolved in the last decade, or even the last half decade” saying “what is happening at the moment is amazing… Drinkers have voted with their dollars – they are choosing flavour and diversity. This hasn’t happened on the back of a multi-million dollar marketing campaign.” It was occurring in America and in New Zealand with Sam noting “what you guys are doing down here is resonating around the world.” ***
He highlighted the “anomaly” that, during a recession, craft beer – the highest end of the market – was doing really well. There were two reasons for this he suggested: “One, craft beer is an affordable luxury… Two, people are choosing to support businesses of a human scale – we work on the same scale as the people buying our stuff.” In one of my favourite lines, Sam argued the growing number of boutique breweries meant we were “moving from mass production to production by the masses.”
The speech really drove home to me that craft beer has two markets. It has the people who already believe and want to try more and learn more. However, there are also people who haven’t sampled craft beer or who don’t believe that beer has any real business on a civilised table.
One of those people, up until very recently, was noted chef Ruth Pretty who prepared the beer versus wine dinner. She gave a short speech which contained one hugely important revelation. She admitted that “we’ve always been a very wine oriented company” but that preparing for this event had “opened our eyes” and they “realised the amazing flavours and food matching capabilities of craft beer.”
It was a reminder that we, as paid or unpaid ambassadors for good beer, have to keep reaching out to those who don’t agree with us yet. We need to engage with the foodies, the wine fanatics and the mainstream beer brand loyalists, those who think they don’t like craft beer and those who don’t even want to give it a taste. It has to be done in an inclusive way which draws them into the aromas and flavours we enjoy on a regular basis.
On Monday, I ran my “Top Picks” beer tasting for Wellington on a Plate, in conjunction with Malthouse and funky tour company Wild about Wellington. In this sold out event, 30 punters got to try six craft beers from local producers such as Three Boys, Epic, Tuatara and Dux de Lux.
What was interesting was that I hardly recognised a soul in attendance. This was a new crowd, for many it was their first ever beer tasting. Being part of a great brand like Wellington on a Plate had encouraged a number of adventurous foodies or curious beer drinkers to have a go. The evening was a huge success with Dux de Lux Sou’Wester winning the popular vote.
Taking the risk (both financial and social) out of trying new beers makes a huge difference. That is why it is so good to see a number of bars, including Malthouse, offering tap samples to help people decide. As Sam himself is fond of saying, “a rising tide lifts all boats.” ****
However, Sam’s duties as a judge, captain and all-round evangelist are simply a warm-up to his most important duties of the week. He will be a ‘volunteer’ on the Malthouse stand at Beervana. Details of which other brewers might be there and what will be pouring will be here tomorrow. *****
* This is completely untrue but a flock of his fans did almost knock me over twice and David Cryer’s hair was criminally tousled in a separate incident.
** All errors are mine. People think I know shorthand but I just have very, very messy handwriting.
*** Sam also recently twittered “NZ is awesome!!!!”
**** Or words to that effect. I couldn’t read my own writing.
***** Probably.
Cheers
Neil Miller
Beer Writer
Real Beer New Zealand
Beer and Brewer Magazine
Links
Dogfish Head – http://www.dogfish.com/
Dogfish Head on Twitter – http://twitter.com/dogfishbeer
“Fizzy Yellow Beer Drinking Ninnies Need Not Read On” – http://www.themalthouse.co.nz/index.php/blog/113-fizzy-yellow-beer-drinking-ninnies-need-not-read-on
Tussle for the Table – http://brewersguild.org.nz/beervana2010/beer-vs-wine-dinner
Beervana – http://brewersguild.org.nz/beervana2010/
Wild about Wellington – http://www.wildaboutwellington.co.nz/
Malthouse on Twitter – http://twitter.com/malthouse
Malthouse Facebook Group – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wellington/Malthouse/7084276173
Real Beer – http://www.realbeer.co.nz/blog/blog.html
Beer and Brewer Magazine – http://www.beerandbrewer.com/