Sam Calgione can do it all. The Dogfish Head Brewery founder may be one of the best speakers you could find for your business event. With the help of his wife and crew has built one of America’s best-known craft breweries from Milton and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
But Sam and crew have been doing a bit of traveling. Tonight at 10 p.m. , Brew Masters debuts on the Discovery Channel. The show, from Zero Point Zero productions takes a page from the Zero Point Zero’s successful TV series, No Reservations, which also travels the globe and is moving towards its 100th episode. That series has a compelling personality in Anthony Bourdain, a tough-talking chef and gifted author, who takes viewers on unusual culinary and cultural journeys.
Clearly, Discovery and production Zero Point Zero see such potential with Calgione, who has managed to strike up a business deal in New York City with celebrity chef Mario Batali and long before the Discovery gig managed to come up with a brew believed consumed by ancient Egypt’s elite. It did not hurt that Dogfish Head also has a few ale houses near Discovery’s Washington, D.C. area headquarters. That sort of guerilla marketing amounts to millions of dollars in marketing exposure for Dogfish Head, which does not have the funds to go head to head with brewing industry giants. Should this series pan out, there will be another nine-figure boost.
But while Bourdain’s show has been a niche player in cable, Brew Masters will take a choice spot on Discovery, one of the big guns in the industry that also operates Animal Planet and the Learning Channel.
For Philadelphia Eagles and Giants fans, who don’t mind springing for a Dogfish Head every once in a while, it will be time to set up the DVR recorder. Brew Master’s first episode is at 10 p.m. , right in the middle of the Sunday night game between the two clubs. Then again, we are talking about cable and there will probably be plenty of rebroadcasts. – Doug Rainey