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Exchange: New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)
Stock Ticker: SAM
The Boston Beer Company History
For the first 35 years of his life, Jim Koch's family history and future career lay in the attic of his parents' house. Tucked away was an old family recipe from the 1800s for Louis Koch Lager. For five generations, the men in the Koch family were brewmasters, but the market for full-flavored beer had diminished and it seemed Jim's father would be the last Koch to carry on the tradition of brewing flavorful beer.
However, Jim's passion for quality, flavorful beer kept him close to his roots. In the early 1980's he became convinced that he could build a niche in the competitive beer market for a high-quality American beer. Using the same recipe and traditional brewing processes that his great-great grandfather used, Jim brewed Samuel Adams Boston Lager® and took beer to a whole new level.
The Timeline Begins...
Samuel Adams Boston Lager® is Born
With his great-great grandfather's recipe for Louis Koch Lager, and a determination to hand-craft quality, flavorful beer, Jim brews his first batch of Samuel Adams Boston Lager® in his kitchen in 1984. Samuel Adams Boston Lager® becomes The Boston Beer Company's flagship style, and is created using only the world's finest, all natural ingredients--no adjuncts. It is brewed using traditional brewing methods such as decoction mash, krausening and dry hopping.
Jim chooses the name Samuel Adams after the Boston patriot, a revolutionary thinker who fought for American independence. Samuel Adams was also a brewer who had inherited a brewing tradition from his father.
Early Success
Samuel Adams® makes its debut in Boston on Patriot's Day in April 1985. Brewing the beer in small batches and keeping an obsessive eye on quality and flavor, Jim carries a few bottles bar-to-bar. Bartenders think the beer is unlike any other they've tasted in freshness and flavor. The beer catches on, and Jim builds the business outward from these first accounts. By the end of the year, sales reach 500 barrels, and distribution expands across Massachusetts, into Connecticut, and a place where great beer is revered, West Germany.
Six weeks after its introduction, Samuel Adams® is selected as "The Best Beer in America" in The Great American Beer Festival's Consumer Preference Poll an award it went on to win an unprecedented four times. Since 2000, Samuel Adams® has won more awards in international beer tasting competitions than any other brewery in the world.
A Tale of Two Breweries
Without the capital to build a world-class brewery, Jim began by brewing in a century old brewery in Pennsylvania while renovating part of the old and largely abandoned Haffenreffer Brewery in an old brewing neighborhood in Boston. The Boston Brewery opens in 1988 and remains a lure for beer pilgrims today. To date, over 300,000 have made their way to this brewing mecca in Boston. Koch proudly brews Samuel Adams Boston Lager® using the time-honored, traditional four vessel brewing process.
In the mid-1990s Jim returns to his hometown of Cincinnati to purchase the Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewery, a place where his father had apprenticed in the 1940s. In January 2005, Jim embarks on a major renovation and expansion of the Samuel Adams Brewery in Cincinnati.
Microbrew Revolution
Jim pioneers the renaissance in American taste for flavorful, traditional beer as Samuel Adams®' success becomes an inspiration and a catalyst to other small brewers. By 1995, hundreds of small, local and regional breweries sprout up all over the country. Today, Samuel Adams is the largest craft brewer, brewing over one million barrels of Boston Beer products, but still is less than 1% of the total US beer market.
Higher Standards
Samuel Adams sets superior standards for quality, hand crafted beer. Insisting that only the world's finest all natural ingredients make the best beer, Jim and his Boston Beer team of brewers travel the world to hand select the finest ingredients. Their hands-on involvement ensures the highest standards for the best ingredients needed to make quality beer. In fact, on Jim's annual hops selection trip to Bavaria the hops farmers always comment on how Jim doesn't just sniff the hops, he 'dives' into them.
Each batch of Samuel Adams® beer is brewed with hand-crafted care and attention to detail to ensure fresh, quality beer. So that consumers enjoy only fresh Samuel Adams®, Jim pioneers consumer readable freshness dating in 1988. Today, Samuel Adams invests in a cooperative program with its distributors to buy back its beer when it's past its peak freshness date.
American Craftsmanship
Under the guidance of Jim, who to this day tastes every batch of beer brewed to ensure it meets his high standards, The Boston Beer Company continues to grow steadily and owns breweries in Boston and Cincinnati.
In 1995 The Boston Beer Company, Inc. went public selling shares of Class A Common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under SAM. Today, The Boston Beer Company employs over 300 individuals who are as equally passionate as Jim when it comes to rich, full-flavored beer to beer lovers everywhere. In addition to the world-famous Samuel Adams family of beers, The Boston Beer Company also brews under the tradenames, Hardcore Cider Company and The Twisted Tea Brewing Company.
Brewing 18-distinctive styles of beer, Samuel Adams® beers offer drinkers a variety of styles for a wide range of tastes. Using the world's finest ingredients to create robust, flavorful beers, these brews include year-round beers, seasonal styles, signature holiday brews and the Brewmaster's Collection. And, Jim and the Boston Beer team of brewers introduce a new beer every year so there's always something different for beer lovers to try.
Pushing the Envelope in Brewing
Never satisfied just to make his own version of existing beer styles, Jim pioneers the extreme brewing movement in the early-1990s, and holds a record in the Guinness Book of World Records for Samuel Adams Utopias®, an extraordinary beer with high alcohol by volume. Jim first brews Samuel Adams Triple Bock in 1993, followed by Samuel Adams® Millennium Ale in 2000 and Samuel Adams Utopias MMII® in 2002, and Samuel Adams Utopias™ in 2003 and 2005.
These "extreme" beers, which stretch the very definition of beer, rival some of the world's finest cognacs and ports.
In 2004, Jim continues to push the envelope in brewing with the release of Samuel Adams® Chocolate Bock. This limited-edition brew uses an exclusive blend of Scharffen Berger chocolate.
2005: Take Pride in your Beer
In the years since 1984, big brewers offer large amounts of money to buy his company, but Jim chooses independence so that he would never have to compromise on his beers. In fact, the recipe for Samuel Adams Boston Lager® has not changed since that first brew. That's why today you can still savor the rich, robust taste that Jim's great-great grandfather did over a century ago.
