Since day one, the Pub has proudly displayed Samuel Adams beer in the pint glass logo. This was actually a deliberate choice because the founder of the Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams is their brand name), Jim Koch exemplifies so many qualities of great inventors that I want to highlight on this site. Not only does he have the qualities of a great inventor, but Koch went though the same steps that inventors must take when he started brewing Sam Adams.

The first step on Jim Koch’s journey was identifying a problem, this was the lack of quality beer in the 70’s and early 80’s available in the United States. Even though strong full bodied beer existed in other parts of the world such as Europe, Koch became frustrated that he was limited to purchasing light lagers. As luck would have it Jim had ancestors that were also into brewing beer, and within the attic of his parents house he found his great-great Grandfather’s recipe for Louis Koch Lager (known today as Sam Adams Boston Lager).

If you read 7 Ways to Think up a Billion Dollar Idea, you will have already identified two methods that Koch used in starting the Boston Beer Company. First he found himself a problem, the shortage of beer to suit his tastes available in the United States. Then he looked to the past to see what those before him had tried, and found a real gem when his great-great Grandfather’s recipe was discovered.

What sets Jim Koch apart from a person with just an idea is the passion that he found for the product and the action that he took to bring it to market. Koch could have brewed it a couple of times in his kitchen, shared it with a couple friends and lost interest after a couple months. Luckily for us, he brought his beer to bars across Massachusetts impressing everyone who tasted it. Then on to beer festivals, including the Great American Beer Festival where it was named best beer in the United States. Since then Jim’s beer has been winning awards all over the world, in all varieties of flavor and type.

Koch’s passion for beer is unrivaled, and it shows in everything that he does. In every interview he does, his face lights up with joy when he starts talking about beer. He really does love creating beer, sharing beer, and drinking beer. The people that work around him talk about how he obsesses on finding the best ingredients and maintaining the highest quality of standards. On top of it he is always trying new ideas for beer, experimenting with different flavors and brewing processes.

Even though Jim Koch was not the first person to brew beer, he truly is an inventor. At his testing brewery (which is open for tours), there are flavors brewing that have never been tried in beer. His Triple Boch and Utopias beers pushed the limits of what defines beer when they set records for highest alcohol content in beer. I was hoping to find the commercial of all of his employees getting nervous when Jim wants to try something new to help illustrate this point (if someone has a link, please share).

All of the recent Sam Adams commercials end by quickly flashing the words “Take pride in your beer.” This is this most important thing to take from Jim Koch, take pride in your own passion. If you would like to learn more about Jim Koch and are over 21 years old, visit the Samuel Adams website (http://samadams.com), and even find out how you can see a tour of his test brewery. As a bonus, I’m embedding a video below of a recent commercial that really displays the passion Jim has for the beer.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 26th, 2008 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Great Inventors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.