The Boston Beer Company is one of the largest American-owned brewing companies, best known for its line of all-malt beers under the brand name Samuel Adams. The Boston Beer Company was founded by Jim Koch, Harry Rubin, and Lorenzo Lamadrid in 1984, along with Rhonda Kallman, a colleague of Koch’s from Boston Consulting Group, who was made a founding partner and vice president of sales in 1985.
The first beer produced by the company, Samuel Adams Boston Lager, was based on a recipe created by Koch’s great-great grandfather Louis Koch and was first sold on Patriots’ Day in 1985.
The brand name Samuel Adams was chosen to honor the American Revolution leader, who is also believed to have been at least a maltster, although some accounts do suggest he was a brewer, too. For example, in Ira Stoll’s “Samuel Adams: A Life,” the author reports that Jim Koch was “once offered for sale a receipt for hops signed by the patriot Samuel Adams.”
The beer was hand-sold in the beginning, and by the end of their first year production was about 500 barrels. Later the same year, it was selected as “The Best Beer in America” in The Great American Beer Festival’s Consumer Preference Poll (and the subsequent 3 years), which figured heavily in early advertising of the brand. The second Samuel Adams beer the company released was their Double Bock, which went on sale in 1988.
By 1992, the brand was distributed nationally in every state and by 1994 was the best-selling specialty beer in the country. In the early 1990s, sales were around $50 million annually, but by the mid-1990s had risen to over $200 million, with 1.2 million barrels produced.
All of Boston Beer’s early production was on a contract basis, brewed initially at the Pittsburgh Brewing Co in Pennsylvania, and later at still others, such as Stroh’s, Blitz-Weinhard, and Miller breweries. In 1988, the company renovated the former Haffenreffer Brewery in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, which today is a tourist destination. A pilot brewery there also conducts research and development and brews specialty beers for limited release. Separate corporate offices are also maintained in downtown Boston.
In the mid-1990s, Boston Beer purchased the Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewery in Cincinnati and in 2005 completed a major renovation and expansion. In 2008, a third brewery was acquired in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania. Today, all Samuel Adams’ beers are produced at company-owned breweries.
The Boston Beer Company went public in 1995, selling Class A Common Stock (which have very limited voting rights) on the New York Stock Exchange, whereas founder Jim Koch owns 100% of Class B Common Stock, which is the only class with full voting rights.
Over 30 different beers are produced under the Samuel Adams label, with Boston Lager still accounting for the majority of the company’s sales. In 2002, Sam Adams Light was introduced, making it one of the first low-calorie light beers produced by a craft brewery. In addition to Boston Lager and Sam Adams Light, nearly a dozen seasonal beers are released each year along with several series of beers. These include, to date, the Brewmaster’s Collection (consisting of 12 different beers), the Imperial Series (with 4 beers), and the Barrel Room Collection (with 3 beers).
In addition to the flagship beers and the other series, Boston Beer has also produced a number of specialty beers. Triple Bock, released in 1994, was one of the company’s first specialty releases and one the first extreme beers produced in America. Triple Bock was an 18% alcohol by volume (ABV) non-carbonated beer sold in a distinctive, small 0.25 l (8.45-oz) dark-blue bottle. That was followed by Millennium Ale in 2000 (at 20% ABV) and Utopias, made every 2 years since 2002 (with the current version at 27% ABV). Utopias is currently the strongest beer made in the United States. Each of these beers has been made in limited quantities.
In 2006, the company began working with TIAX Laboratories of Cambridge, Massachusetts, to develop a proprietary glass. Comparing designs of dozens of glasses and testing different configurations for nearly a year, they designed the new glass to maximize such properties as nucleation, volume-to-surface ratio, and foam retention. The glass was released in 2007 and is claimed to enhance the flavors of Samuel Adams Boston Lager.
In addition to the Samuel Adams brand, the company owns the trade names Hardcore Cider Company and the Twisted Tea Brewing Company, under which they produce the alcoholic products hard cider and hard iced tea. Both lines are purposefully kept separate from the Samuel Adams brand.
The company also works closely with the homebrewing community and sponsors a contest called the Longshot American Homebrew Contest in which homebrewers are invited to enter their beers in regional competitions. Regional winners are then judged in a final, where three are selected as winners. The Longshot winners have their beers produced by Samuel Adams under the Longshot label, with their pictures on the label and sold in a mixed six-pack.