Sam Adams 40th Anniversary

It does sound interesting but it’s tough given the OG spot is pretty much a drive to and drive out spot. Would be nice if it was a closer Uber to a place to stay. Honestly, not sure if anyone was part of this but being on their after hours beer panel meeting during the mid 2000’s was amazing. So much to try and certainly had some utopias tastings as well. This was separate from the open houses.

 

We contemplated going, but ultimately decided against it as the Uber to/from the brewery is quite pricey, especially combined with tix. Not to mention the potential of traffic issues with the Sumner closed for the weekend.

 

Are we talking about the Sam Adams taproom in Jamaica Plain that is a five minute walk from the Stony Brook Orange Line MBTA stop or is there some secret location I'm unaware of?

 

No, that’s it. But it’s an event I’d probably want to not have to drive and I don’t think we’d be up for going out of the city if we were staying in town. I’m quite familiar with the area. No worries

 

My North Shore town doesnt have a train stop. Nor do I really care to spend an hour+ each direction to use buses/trains. Any other comments?

 

Nope. Sorry if my message came off as snarky, I just gotta pump our dying public transit system whenever I can. Glad to hear you are taking ubers. Cheers!

 

No worries. I wish the public transit system were better. We used it all the time when we lived around DC and Chicago. Just not near as convenient north of downtown here.

 

!!! Sounds like a great event!

 

I realize that Alabama frozen embryos (< which is a great name for a punk band) are children and some believe that life begins at conception - after all, don't we all have cake and sing Happy Conception Day on the date when mom and dad first, uh, "met" in the back of that Chevy, but how does one explain a 40th Anniversary being celebrated 39 years after a beer was first released?

Koch has typically been unclear when that first commercial batch of SABL was brewed although he does claim he didn't even pick the name until after it was in the bottle. Contrary to BBC, Anheuser Busch once famously labeled that a beer was "Born On" the day it was packaged,

So, I guess it's the 40th anniversary of when Koch first thought of it?

 

This is way too deep. Even for us on Beeradvocate

 

Math? I know, while I can touch-type (sophmore year HS), I never did learn the calculator feature on the number section of a computer keyboard...

 

BBC was founded in 1984. It's not a big leap.

 

Yeah, that's been the BBC PR line for quite awhile - although, in the early days, the "homebrewed in his kitchen" trope wasn't around - Koch distance his beer and brewery from homebrewing and, particular, microbrewing in the beginning.

(That likely changed after SABL's controversial GABF wins in the late 1980s).

But the question becomes (philosophically, almost ) how does one define a particular beer? Is it the recipe or merely the brand name? Koch's own book Quench Your Own Thirst ©2016 ( - never understood how a marketing genius picked that title) makes it clear that when the first commercial batch brewed at Pittsburgh hit Boston, they still hadn't settled on a name:

The recipe of a specific beer, in the case of SABL (and, really, all other beers with a history) is more complicated. Koch claims the recipe, found in his father's brewing files, was from the 1860s. Homebrewing in the early-1980s was generally pretty primitive (all-grain, i.e., no syrup or malt powder, in a kitchen wasn't common) and ingredients, available for purchase for 5 gallon sized batches were limited. And Koch describes brewing numerous batches, implying recipe changes. Whatever homebrew he made, it obviously was not a legal BATF approved commercial beer.

Koch hires brewing consultant Joe Owades "in late 1984" who (according to his obituary in Modern Brewery Age) "found modern counterparts for long gone barley strains and hop varieties, and introduced some key procedures, including dry hopping and krausening". So, is it that same1860s recipe? Koch and Owades brew a ~10 gallon (⅓ of a barrel) batch at UC Davis, but Koch doesn't like the results "not enough hops". Again, an implied recipe change.

That is true.

And according to the US Patent and Trademark Office's TESS listing for "Boston Beer Company":

Yeah, lots of little technicalities but, for me, a beer's existence as well as a brewing company's founding date should really be the day and year it's first beer was available and sold commercially.

(I won't even bring up Koch's trying to claim the 1828 starting date of the previous Boston Beer Co., in an article pitting him against Dick Yuengling in a 2004 INC magazine article. )