The Samuel Adams brand began with Samuel Adams Boston Lager. The original recipe was developed in 1860 in St. Louis, Missouri by Louis Koch, who sold under the name Louis Koch Lager until Prohibition, and again until the early 1950s. In 1984, Jim Koch, the fifth-generation, first born son to follow in his family’s brewing footsteps, brewed his first batch of Samuel Adams Boston Lager 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. In December 1984, Koch left his career at Boston Consulting Group to focus full-time on brewing craft beer. Shortly thereafter, he optimized the recipe with the help of Joseph Owades, the man credited with the invention of light beer in the 1970s. Jim chose the name Samuel Adams after the Boston patriot, who fought for American independence, and who also had inherited a brewing tradition from his father. In April 1985, the beer was re-introduced as Samuel Adams Boston Lager, at the re-creation of the first battle of the American Revolution on Patriot's Day. Three months later, it was voted “Best Beer in America” at the Great American Beer Festival, in which 93 national and regional beers competed. The publicity that followed helped the Boston Beer Company's sales grow to 7,393,000 liters (63,000 barrels) in 1989. The beer was first put on tap at Doyle's Cafe in Jamaica Plain. The company's success occurred as the U.S. craft brewery movement was exploding. By 1995, some 600 craft breweries were producing specialty beers in the United States. That year The Boston Beer Company went public, selling shares of Class A Common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under SAM. Despite the appearance of competitors, the company remained the largest craft brewer in the United States with nearly 141 million liters (1.2 million barrels) sold in 1996. As of 2007, the company produces twelve varieties of beer year-round: Boston Lager, Sam Adams Light, Boston Ale, Pale Ale, Cherry Wheat, Cream Stout, Brown Ale, Hefeweizen, Scotch Ale, Black Lager, Honey Porter, and Irish Red. The Sam Adams Boston Lager contains 4.75% abv, roughly average for its style. Other styles have pushed the physical limits of alcohol content for the brewing process - in 2003 one batch of Utopias contained 25.6% abv, beating the records that Samuel Adams Triple Bock and Samuel Adams Millennium had set before it. Announced in October 2009, the Boston Beer Company has teamed up with German brewery Weihenstephan to jointly produce a new craft beer to be marketed in Germany and the U.S. next spring. The companies have been working on the project for nearly two years. The beer has yet to be named, but will be sold in cork-finished bottles, and will contain more than 10 percent alcohol. [READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE]
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