Sam Calagione, founder of Dogfish Head Brewery in Delaware, combines a lot of trends in his new book, “Extreme Brewing: An Introduction to Brewing Craft Beer at Home” (Quarry Press, $24.99).

Craft beer is big, especially with unusual ingredients. And more people are brewing beer at home than ever before.

“Extreme Brewing” includes 14 beer recipes that have never been published before and dozens of recipes from craft brewers around the country, including Allagash in Portland and Portsmouth Brewery in New Hampshire.

The recipes all are based on canned malt extract, the easiest method, although most of them have options for brewing with dry malt extract or full grains. It also includes a concise history of brewing, some definitions of brewery terms and some beer recipes.

Dogfish Head, by the way, is named after a spot on Southport Island on the Boothbay Peninsula, and Calagione spent the summers of his youth at his parents’ place in that area. 

Q: Why would you write a book teaching people to brew at home the kind of beer you sell?

A: That sounds counterintuitive, to say the least. In the craft brewing community, the line between the hobbyist world of the home brewer and the professional world of the craft brewer is kind of beautifully blurred. I’d say that 90 percent of the people who open craft breweries start as home brewers. The brewers all help each other out and support each other.

We all know that home brewers and craft brewers are promiscuous. They don’t drink just their own beer. And we are not providing just recipes from Dogfish Head; we have them from a lot of breweries — including two from your area, Tod Mott at Portsmouth Brewery and Rob Tod at Allagash. 

Q: Do you think most buyers of this book will actually be home brewers, or are they people who are just interested in beer?

A: When people come up and tell me they bought a book and want me to sign it, 80 percent of the people are home brewers who really want to experiment with new recipes. A number of people who buy it are foodies interested in using, in food recipes, the combination of spices that comes up in some of the beers. One recipe used the ingredients in Crandaddy braggot.

I’m sure some will buy it because they are interested in beer or in brewing history, but most of them will be brewers. 

Q: Your brewery, Dogfish Head, is named after a Maine location. How did that come about?

A: My parents had a summer place on an island, Pratts Island, off of Southport Island on the Boothbay Peninsula right next to a place called Dogfish Head. When I first decided I wanted to start a brewery, my dad said, “Why not use the name Dogfish Head?” It just had a good sound.

And when I opened the brewery in Delaware — it has a New England feel with a lot of rustic domestic boats and coast. And since I grew up in western Massachusetts, it seemed appropriate that it have a New England name even though it is in Delaware. 

Q: Tell me the origination of your motto, “Off-centered ales for off-centered people.”

A: We have had that motto since the day we opened. The brewery was super tiny. We decided the only way to make a super impact with a tiny advertising budget and a tiny marketing budget was to stick out. So instead of following traditional beer recipes like the first generation of craft brewers did right from the beginning was to consider any ingredient from the entire culinary landscape as a potential ingredient for our beer.

For that reason, people would think if they are a little off-centered and adventurous, they would like our beers. 

Q: I saw only two episodes of your TV show, “Brew Masters” (on Discovery Channel), and it seems to have been canceled after only one season. Any chance of it  coming back?

A: I don’t think so. I don’t like to dwell on the past, but I learned very quickly how big advertisers and big networks work. And I was reminded once again why it is so important  for beer lovers to support independent brewers.   

Q: What was the first beer you ever tasted that showed you, “Hey, this is serious stuff; it doesn’t have to be Bud or Miller?”

A: My dad drank a lot of Moosehead when I was growing up, and I remember sneaking some of those. Then I was working at a beer garden and I had some Red Chimay and Sierra Nevada Celebration, and that was my epiphany week of what beer should be. 

Q: What beer of the ones you make do you like best? And what beers that you don’t make?

A: I would probably say I drink our hoppiest beers most, like Indian Brown Ale, the 60-Minute IPA and Hellhound, brewed in celebration of the 100th birthday of Robert Johnson (the blues legend). But I also bring home a bottle of any of the specialty beers we make in a week.

With other brewers, I don’t like to name names, but thinking about Maine, I really love the beers from Allagash and Maine Beer Co. I spent some time cleaning out vats at Shipyard, and I think fondly of that time, and of sitting at Gritty McDuff’s and having a nice cask ale.

I’m coming up to Maine soon to visit my parents, and I am looking forward to sitting down at Boothbay Craft Brewery, owned by my buddy Win Mitchell, and having a pint. He has been working on that a long time, and it is a true craft brewery. He has built that largely by himself. 

Q: Owning a brewery, starring in a TV show, writing a book: What’s next in your career?

A: I’m trying to spend more time at home with my family. We are doing a $51 million expansion at the brewery, going up from 200,000 to 500,000 to 600,000 barrels a week, so I am spending a lot of time dealing with that. I still go to the pub and work on recipes, and I have lots of people, so the brewing operation almost runs itself.

Tom Atwell, a freelance writer living in Cape Elizabeth, writes the What Ales You column in the Press Herald’s GO on Thursdays. He can be contacted at 767-2297 or at:

tomatwell@me.com

 

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