Sam Calagione, the fearless founder and president of Dogfish Head Brewery, will take to the high seas this summer, piloting a 19-foot Boston Whaler on a 600-mile journey from his home base to Dogfish Head, Maine.

The voyage celebrates the opening of The Dogfish Head Inn in Lewes, Delaware and serves as fundraiser for The Nature Conservancy.

Over the course of eight days at sea, Calagione and his first mate, teenage son Sammy, will make five overnight stops where they will host multicourse beer dinners at some of their favorite restaurants. Dogfish Head and the host restaurants will donate $2,000 at each stop to The Nature Conservancy, a million-member nonprofit dedicated to conserving "the lands and waters on which all life depends."

Stops include Atlantic City, NJ on Monday, June 23 at Scales Grill and Deck Bar; New York on Wednesday, June 25 at La Birreria at Eataly; Block Island, Rhode Island on Thursday, June 26 at Atlantic Inn; Boston on Sunday, June 29 at Merchant; and Portland, Maine on Tuesday, July 1 at Infiniti Fermentation and Distillation.

Guests at each dinner will be the first to taste Pennsylvania Tuxedo, a collaboration beer Dogfish Head recently made with the iconic American apparel-maker Woolrich, Inc. Other goodies include Dogfish Head pint glasses, a Dogfish/Woolrich wool koozie and a Boston Whaler visor.

Calagione who once rowed a sixpack across the Delaware Bay to New Jersey to celebrate Dogfish Head’s first out of state sale, calls this summer’s trip at sea “the varsity version of that JV trip.”

The trip will end at Dogfish Head, Maine, the place where Calagione spent summers as a kid and where the brewery got its name. Along the way he and his son will make stops to hike, paddleboard and photograph some of the coastal properties The Nature Conservancy protects. They'll see places like South Cape May Meadows, a globally renowned birding spot at the southern tip of New Jersey; Pine Neck Nature Sanctuary, a 77-acre beachcomber's dream on Long Island's South Shore; and Berry Woods Preserve, home to “a multi-use mosaic of conservation” near Maine's Kennebec River.

For more information about the trip, The Nature Conservancy, Dogfish Head Inn or to make reservations for one of the beer dinners, check the Dogfish Head website.

Photo: Dogfish Head