America’s other Uncle Sam (Samuel Adams)
The Boston Beer Company pioneered the current revolution in American beers, and spearheaded the growth of smaller brewers. But who was Samuel Adams?
The idea of these ‘beer legends’ pages is to champion someone who made an important contribution to the world of beer. So why are we writing about someone who was a rotten brewer and a poor businessman? Who exactly was Samuel Adams and what on earth did he do to enter out roll of honour?
In fact for the purposes of a beer magazine, it’s not so much the man as the man’s name that has earned him his place here. For Samuel Adams is the brand that kept the ashes burning for smaller breweries in the States, and who laid the foundations for the blazing fire that is the American brewing industry today. The brand’s owner, the Boston Beer Company, proved that it was possible to compete with the giants of American brewing and not only succeed but excel in the field.
And through its flagship brand it was able to win national distribution for its product and, most significantly find its way in to tourist outlets such as airports and eventually in to the export market.
The ‘legend’ behind the company isn’t therefore Samuel Adams, it is the company’s founder, Jim Koch. But Samuel Adams is as good a symbol for a bloody-minded and independent company from Massachusetts as any.
Samuel Adams’ claim to fame is as one of the men who signed the American Declaration of Independence, but his role at the hub of Boston politics and as a sparkling politician and charismatic leader had been defined way before that.
He was born in 1722 at Quincy, Massachusetts, to a respectable family who had been .....
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Section : Beer Legends
Page number : 46
