Brewer Q & A (Issue 21)

92 Rating – Boston Beer Co. – Samuel Adams Boston Lager

Responses from Boston Beer founder Jim Koch.

Who came up with this beer’s recipe?
In 1984, I told my father I was going to quit my job as a consultant to become a brewer. He looked at me and said, ‘”Jim, you’ve done some stupid things in your life. That’s just about the stupidest.” My father saw small breweries like his close as the beer industry consolidated and large breweries who produced inexpensive, mass-domestic beers dominated the beer market. Nevertheless, he took me to the attic where the Koch family archives were safely kept in a trunk under years of Road and Track and Motor Trend magazines. That is where we found my great-great grandfather’s recipe for Louis Koch Lager. For six generations, all of the oldest sons in the Koch family have been brewers, making me a sixth-generation brewer – so I guess you could say that brewing is in my blood.

The recipe was for an all-malt beer that adhered to the Reinheitsgebot, a German beer purity law dating to 1516. The Reinheitsgebot stipulates that beer can only contain four ingredients: water, yeast, hops and malted barley or wheat. It’s important to remember that in 1984, Boston Lager was unlike any other beer at that time. Virtually all American beers used corn, rice and other adjuncts in addition to malt to make the beer lighter and more drinkable. My goal was to make a better beer, one brewed with high-quality, flavorful ingredients and introduce it to the American beer drinker. 

What’s your favorite aspect of this beer (flavor, aroma, etc.)?
To be honest, I love everything about this beer and one of my favorite things to do is to walk someone through the beer its appearance, aroma, flavor, mouthfeel and finish – and when I see a drinker appreciate Boston Lager the way I do, it makes my day. Since I started brewing Boston Lager I’ve been hyper-focused on the quality of the ingredients, the brewing process that draws on traditional and time-intensive German brewing techniques, and making sure we are providing our drinkers with the freshest beer possible. In fact, I taste test every batch of Boston Lager to ensure it meets our quality standards.

When I started brewing Boston Lager in 1984, finding the right ingredients was critical to making the best beer possible. The recipe called for two Noble Hop varieties, Tettnang Tettnanger and Hallertau Mittelfrueh hops, which were hard to come by. These hops were prone to disease and demanded constant attention from farmers, but they were essential for brewing my beer. Hallertau Mittelfrueh and Tettnang Tettnanger Noble hops add a wide range of floral, piney and citrus notes, which are present from the aroma, through the flavor, and all the way to the lingering, smooth finish. We had to convince German farmers to continue to grow these special hops and have since built amazing relationships with them over the past thirty-plus years. We’ve even worked with hop farmers to determine the best time to harvest these hops, which turned out not to be the traditional harvest time, when they are perfectly green, but rather when they are beginning to see some browning and age on the vine – that's when the flavors and aromas peak.

Additionally, it’s important that we use Two-Row malted barley in our Boston Lager, which imparts a full, smooth body and gives Boston Lager a wide spectrum of flavors from toasted to toffee. Two-Row barley has kernels extending from both rows of the stalk, unlike Six-Row barley that has three kernels staircased on either side of the stalk. Six-Row yields more, making it less expensive, but has a lower starch-to-protein ratio for brewing.

Also, following my great-great grandfather’s recipe meant that brewing Samuel Adams Boston Lager would take about 35 days compared to the 21 days or less for many American (and most imported) beers at the time. We use a traditional brewing process for Boston Lager (which is also very labor-intensive) including decoction mash (a four-vessel process) and krausening (a secondary fermentation) as well as dry hopping, a process of adding fresh hops to the beer as it ages, which has now become a mainstay of craft brewing.

Where does this beer’s name come from?
Samuel Adams Boston Lager is named after the patriot Samuel Adams, a Founding Father who was among the first committed to the idea of American independence and who was also brewer and a maltster. In 1984, the beer landscape was dramatically different than it is today and was dominated by mass-domestic beers and foreign imports. By naming my beer after Samuel Adams, I hoped the beer would help start a craft beer revolution and overthrow the popularity of light, fizzy and flavorless beers.

Is this your “desert island beer?”
Boston Lager is absolutely my “desert island beer” and the beer that’s always in my fridge and in my hand. When I homebrewed my first batch in my kitchen, I thought if I could taste this beer for the rest of my life, I’d be a happy man. It’s been more than thirty years since then and I couldn’t be happier.

Can you describe this beer in 10 words or less?
Perfectly balanced, complex and revolutionary.

Do you know a story – or have a personal story – that revolves around this beer?
There are countless stories I could share that revolve around enjoying a Boston Lager, but one of my greatest memories, one that will always stay with me, is when Boston Lager won its first award. In 1985, six weeks after I first introduced Boston Lager to drinkers in Boston, a small group of us traveled to the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO. More than a hundred different beers were served from brewers big and small across America. When it was announced that Samuel Adams Boston Lager was selected as “The Best Beer in America” at GABF, we were shocked and humbled! A family recipe that was first brewed in my kitchen was declared the “Best Beer in America!”

Since then, we've won more awards at international beer tasting competitions than any other brewery in the world, which continues to amaze me and certainly speaks to the quality of American craft beer. The journey from 1984 to today has been wild, amazingly fun, and always accompanied by a pint of Boston Lager.