Boston Beer Company

Early history

The Boston Beer Company was founded in 1984 by James "Jim" Koch and Rhonda Kallman. The initial beer offering was Samuel Adams Boston Lager, a 4.8% abv amber or Vienna lager. Koch, the sixth-generation, first-born son to follow in his family's brewing footsteps, brewed his first batch of the beer in his kitchen, using the original family recipe for Louis Koch Lager. At the time, Koch was working at Boston Consulting Group after receiving BA, MBA and JD degrees from Harvard University. While serving in his role as a manufacturing consultant at BCG, Koch developed a business plan for a locally focused beer company. He invested $100,000 of his own money and raised additional funds from investors, family members, and friends including former classmates and BCG colleagues. The company was organized as a limited liability partnership; most early investors did not have active roles in the company. However, one early investor, John B. Wing, held a board seat until 2002.Koch named his beer after the Boston patriot Samuel Adams, who fought for American independence, and who also had inherited a brewing tradition from his father. In March 1985, Koch introduced the beer as Samuel Adams Boston Lager, over Patriot's Day weekend which honors the first battle of the American Revolution and today is more widely known for the running of the Boston Marathon. Six weeks later, Samuel Adams was voted "Best Beer in America" at the Great American Beer Festival, in which 93 national and regional beers competed. The beer was first put on tap at Doyle's Cafe in Jamaica Plain.Initially, Koch rented excess capacity and brewed the beer at the Pittsburgh Brewing Company, best known for their Iron City brand of beer. As sales increased Koch developed other contract arrangements at various brewing facilities with excess capacity, ranging from Stroh breweries, Portland's original Blitz-Weinhard brewery , Cincinnati's Hudepohl-Schoenling brewery , and industry giant SABMiller. The Boston Beer Company also has a small R&D brewery located in Boston , Massachusetts, where public tours and beer tastings are offered. The brewery occupies part of the premises of the old Haffenreffer Brewery.

1990s – present

In 1997, Jim Koch returned to his hometown of Cincinnati to purchase the Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewery, where his father apprenticed in the 1940s. This was also an important step the company took to reduce reliance on contract brewing.

The Boston Beer Company went public, selling shares of Class A Common Stock on the New York Stock Exchange, under the ticker symbol, "SAM". These shares, however, have no voting rights, while the company is controlled through its Class B Common Stock, of which Koch owns 100% of the shares.Boston Beer launched Hardcore Cider in 1997, and Twisted Tea brand in 2000. In 2007, the Boston Beer Company purchased the former F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company brewery in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley. The brewery had been owned by Diageo North America, Inc. and used for the production of Smirnoff Ice malt beverages since 2001. By 2012, Samuel Adams was producing two-thirds of all its beer at the Breinigsville facility, and it has increased brewing capacity there. In 2012 Boston Beer Company launched Angry Orchard hard cider company based in Cincinnati, Ohio.As of 2014, the company had 1,325 employees in its Boston, Massachusetts, Cincinnati, Ohio and Breinigsville, Pennsylvania breweries.On May 9, 2019, Boston Beer Company acquired Delaware-based Dogfish Head Brewery for $300 million. As part of the merger, Dogfish Head owner Sam Calagione and his wife, Mariah, became the second biggest non-institutional owners of Boston Beer Company.In 2020, Boston Beer Company invested $85 million dollars in its Cincinnati plant to quadruple its current canning capacity of Samuel Adams, Angry Orchard, Twisted Tea, and Truly Hard Seltzer.