Sam Adams overhauls its logo

Otter Creek overhauled their logo and labels a few years ago. They were being viewed as an old tired brewery so they came out with what they felt was a cool new hip design.

 

Agreed, watering ones lawn with SA is a great use.

 

Hahahahaha, I just didn't wanna knock SA. Never really a fan.

 

Ugh the Hopscape. Yuck.

But always enjoy a Cold Snap apres-ski in New England - something about a crowded ski lodge & when I'm dying for a beer it tastes amazing.

 

Looks like they changed the recipe of the Rebel IPA.

 

Did you read that somewhere? Or just an opinion based on the taste?

And for what it's worth... I hate the new branding. Very generic and boring.

 

Although, unlike Sam Adams, Otter Creek also completely overhauled their beer line-up. Not a single beer prior to Otter Creek's rebranding is being made anymore (RIP Vermont Lager, Stovepipe Porter, Copper Ale, Pale Ale, etc.) I used to buy Otter Creek stuff fairly regularly, but I didn't like the new direction marketing-wise or beer-wise. I honestly can't remember the last time I bought anything from Otter Creek, but I know I'm in the minority and the company is doing very well.

 

I haven't bought much myself either although some of my friends in VT have and love some offerings, but I did buy their Lawson collaboration Double or Nothing (Maple Barleywine). I had tried it at the Hen of the Woods December 15 and bought one in a store, which I sat on for a year. The fresh one I had on tap was very boozy and hard to drink, I just recently opened the one I cellared and I was absolutely blown away. So smooth and flavorful.

 

I was never sure why Mr Koch used Sam Adams as his logo. After blowing through several family loans in business failures his father appointed him a partner in the family malt house. The Adams family malt house only made malt for other breweries and never as far as historians know ever brewed a single barrel of beer.Samuel was disinterested in the malt house and worked very infrequently there (if at all)and took some of the profits to fund his political aims.He has been described as a teetotaller by many of his contemporaries abstaining from hard liquor. He probably drank weak beer and cider like most of his contemporaries but was never a champion of beer. It is a cool looking logo though.

 

According to his recent book (Quench Your Own Thirst) his initial brand name was going to be "New World Lager" with a second choice of "Samuel Adams", when an investor suggested hiring a ad agency for naming which came up with "Sacred Cod".

"Samuel Adams" was an option not so much for his brewing industry/maltster background but because he was a "firebrand and rabble-rouser whom historians had largely overlooked".

He finally choose "Samuel Adams" over "New World Lager" (which, he notes, had a prettier label) because the former, "stronger and more deeply rooted in history", suggested Koch wanted to "throw the foreign beers out... just as our Founding Fathers wanted to throw the Brits out."

It should be recalled that Koch's Boston Beer Co. did not start out considering itself part of the early "microbrewing/craft movement" but was a reaction to the then growing import beer segment and his early advertising took aim at Heineken, Beck's and Molson, etc.

In a 1985 AP story on the release of SABL, which noted his and his investors' initial $400k:
“You could start a microbrewery for that amount but you can’t make a good lager in a micro-brewery."

 

I like both Sam Adams at large and especially Boston Lager. As someone mentioned above, it is a crisp, clean and conistently well made beer that you can find just about anywhere. It's an American company putting Americans to work in America, and making a great product to boot.

I also support the rebranding, the labels may have lost some character that frequent craft drinkers were used to, but it gained an important bit of eye catchability that often is the make or break between newer and younger drinkers unfamiliar with the brand picking up your product, or thinking it's a beer for old dudes stuck in the past.

Everyone knocks the big brands, and sales may be down across the board, but they're still selling more beers than everyone else. Maybe it's time to borrow some of their marketing strategies. If Boston Beer goes under, most of us up here might shrug and say no big loss, there's newer and better stuff out there every day, but the craft beer scene as a whole would lose, arguably, its biggest mouthpiece and success story in modern time.

 

This reminds me of a (hopefully) funny story. Back in about 1990 I went to visit a friend in California who brought us to a silly college bar that had a "belly bust" special where all domestic beers were 25 cents until the first person went to the bathroom. Craft/microbrew wasn't even on the radar there and they were solely differentiating things in terms of whether they were an import.

When I go up to the bar I see that they have Sam Adams on tap. I kind of assumed that they were using "domestic" as shorthand for the cheap stuff, but I figured I'd ask if it counted anyway. The bartender tells me "No, that's not included - only domestics". I tell him that, being named "Samuel Adams" and all, I'm pretty sure it's a domestic beer. "Nope, that one's an import" he says. Oh well

What a different world it was back then. At least I can say that I was not the first one to go the bathroom!

 

Those circular beer icons showing whats in the box reminds me of my Boy Scout Merit Badges!

I want to earn me the Fezziwig Badge!