Raising a toast to Dogfish collaboration

When a few Dogfish Head entrepreneurs started brewing Shelter Pale Ale commercially back in 1995, the initiative warranted a small local business story. In the nearly quarter-century since, through steady cultivation, creativity, devotion to off-centered innovation, and quality, determination, collaboration and relentless marketing and promotion, Dogfish grew into a nationally recognized craft brewer.

Its cultishly loyal following consumes hundreds of thousands of barrels each year of a variety of beers and ales created, brewed, bottled, canned, marketed and served by a team that now numbers in the 400 range.

By the time news broke last week that Dogfish Head is joining forces with Boston Beer Company, that small, local business story had grown into a large national business story.

Dogfish championed win-win collaborations from its earliest days, combining forces with the coffee roastery at Lewes Bake Shop for its Chicory Stout, and even offering six-packs of its Shelter as a promotional premium for new subscribers to the Cape Gazette in the newspaper’s fledgling years. Readers consumed news and great local beer together until Delaware’s alcohol controllers told us the arrangement was a no-no.

That collaborative spirit proved contagious, as did Dogfish’s off-centered culture that has strongly, positively and distinctively influenced the provincial flavor of Delaware’s Cape Region.

The company’s meteoric success has also pumped untold millions of dollars into the local economy through jobs and a steady stream of donations to hundreds of charitable events.

Now Dogfish has taken its collaborative bent to a whole new level with the Boston Beer merger. We don’t know what the future will bring, but we do know the synergy from this marriage has the potential of taking to an even higher level all the positives realized in our area through the Dogfish evolution and revolution.

We’re heartened by founder Sam Calagione’s statement that the Dogfish brand will remain intact in coastal Delaware. We join many others in clinking our bottles together in a toast to the past and future success of Dogfish Head and its grandest collaboration of all.