Sam Calagione is living the dream. Not only is he the founder of beloved craft brewery , in Delaware, but when tasting beer all day gets too stressful, the 46-year-old gets to retreat to the dopest听tree house in the brewing business (probably one of the only ones, in fact).
Here鈥檚 the story: Calagione is a big fan of the steam punk aesthetic. Its cobbled-together repurposing of industrial materials in new, innovative ways inspires him in his work at the brewery. For example, Dogfish Head produces a line of ancient ales and bills its brews as 鈥渁nalog beer for the digital age.鈥 A few years ago, Calagione stumbled across the work of , a steam punk art collective in the San Francisco Bay Area, and was smitten. He reached out to the group and offered to donate some beer to the group, as a friendly gesture. Five Ton Crane was flattered and mentioned that it was trying to find a permanent home for a tree house it had constructed for Burning Man. The group was willing to unload it for just $1.听Was Dogfish interested in buying it?
Calagione was. But what he didn鈥檛 factor in was the price of moving the eight-ton steel structure across the country听and re-erecting it. Like every construction project in the known history of man, it went both over time and over budget.听鈥淚t ended up costing more than $80,000 when we were all done,鈥 says Calagione. “We didn鈥檛 plan that very well.鈥
Reflecting on the process today, Calagione says it was worth it. The towering hunk of twisting metal stands听on the brewery site听as a novelty (no one lives in it), and听has become听one of his favorite spots for meetings.听鈥淭he reality is, sitting in regularly scheduled meetings can be soul-sucking. You need to break away and literally think outside the box that is that normal, fluorescent lighted room,鈥 says Calagione.
And a little beer doesn鈥檛 hurt either. Calagione鈥檚 favorite feature of the tree house is a bucket with a rope that he can lower down to a bartender when a meeting needs a little libation lubrication. In fact, the brewery鈥檚 20th anniversary beer, set to be released in November, was conceived in the tree house鈥檚 funky steel womb. It鈥檚 a brain-fogging, 20 percent ABV golden ale fermented with cherries and aged with听cocoa nibs. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like the ultimate birthday cake in liquid form,鈥 Calagione says. (Pro tip: climb down the tree house's听ladder听before drinking this, or any听20 percent beer.)
Apart from听a few select days throughout the year, the tree house isn鈥檛 open to the general public. But fortunately, the potent birthday beer and all other subsequent formulations dreamed up in the tree house are. So even if you can鈥檛 visit the tree house, you can enjoy its fruits.