Jim Koch (pronounced like "Cook") is most well recognized for being the founder of the Boston Beer Company which produces the Samuel Adams line of brews. No one has ever accused Jim of being dim-witted fellow despite beer's reputation for killing a brain cell or two. Koch managed to obtain his BA, MBA, and JD all from Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. While his intellectual pursuits are impressive it was his ancestors that influenced him towards an interest in brewing.

Koch is a fifth generation brewer and inherited his great-great-grandfather’s remarkable beer recipe. The beer was aptly known and produced as the self-titled, Lois Koch Lager, and was originally developed around 1860 in St. Louis, MS. After deciding to leave a successful career in business consulting Jim sought to pursue brewing beer as a living. Koch debated keeping the original name, but opted to use Samuel Adams as the figure to represent the company because of his history as a brewer, free thinking spirit, and his patriotic role in leading the American Revolution.

At the start of production in 1984 Samuel Adams Lager Koch demonstrated the shrewd business sense that he acquired while at Harvard. He noted that there was a growing market demand for flavorful domestic beers that was not met by the domestic macrobreweries or the craft imports of the time. Jim has such a passion for brewing that he refuses to produce an inferior product even if that means spending more for superior ingredients. Koch was confident and hedged his bets that consumers would be willing to pay a premium for a domestic beer as long as it demonstrated the bold tastes and flavors similar to those found in the imported beers at the time but without the preservatives. While other domestic craft brewers at the time immediately invested their startup capital in  brewing facilities, Koch instead contracted out the production of the beer to a brewery in Pittsburgh that had excess capacity. The remaining capital was directed towards marketing and brand exposure, promoting Sam Adams as a quality American brew.

It didn't hurt when Sam Adams won the "Best Beer in the United States" at the Great American Beer Festival, but in order to spur sales and distribution early on Koch setup a grass roots campaign. He traveled to local Boston bars to make sales pitches and give taste samples to bartenders and owners in an attempt to convince them that the taste would warrant some clientèle to order a Sam Adams despite the steeper price. Today, Koch continues to be the model of dedication. Even after going public with the Boston Beer Company and receiving several offers to be bought-out, he still is intimately involved with new product research as well as quality control. He is famously attributed for proclaiming and advertising that "I’d rather put people into stale beer than put stale beer into people" and every year at the company wide meeting a dunk tank is filled with all the stale beer that was bought back throughout the year.

Now where did I leave that Boston Beer Co. job application?