Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
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ON THE TOWN Doyle's Cafe has long been popular with Boston's political insiders. BOTTLE SERVICE The big picture: The Boston Beer Company brews about 2 million barrels of beer per year. The high end: Samuel Adams Utopias has a price tag of $190, an ABV of 29 percent, and the complexity of fine cognac. The finish line: Samuel Adams 26.2 Boston Brew will be available on draft locally from early March until it's gone. It's spiked with a hint of salt for weary marathon runners. The perfect pint. Koch having a laugh at Doyle's Cafe. boston's brewhaha SAMUEL ADAMS FOUNDER JIM KOCH TOASTS THE LEGENDARY HAUNT DOYLE'S CAFE. BY MAT SCHAFFER PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRYCE VICKMARK I f you've ever wanted to share a pint with Jim Koch, founder and chairman BOSTON COMMON: Is beer the new wine? of The Boston Beer Company and the man behind Samuel Adams beers, JIM KOCH: Forty years ago, a handful of California winemakers started stop into Doyle's Cafe in Jamaica Plain, a popular Boston watering hole for creating world-class wines right here in America, and they slowly but surely 121 years. Koch has been drinking and dining here since he introduced Sam changed the way America, and now the world, thinks about American Adams back in 1984. The company's Boston brewery is a short trolley ride wine. The exact same thing is happening with craft beer. Twenty-nine years away, and Doyle's was one of the first pubs on the planet to sell Samuel ago, a handful of small American brewers—like Sam Adams—started making some of the best beers in the world right here in the United States and Adams Boston Lager on tap. Koch orders the meatless Reuben sandwich—he says the acidity of the have now changed the way the rest of the world thinks about American beer. kraut and the rich dressing pair perfectly with Samuel Adams Boston Lager. BC: Back when you started, you were a lonely prophet in the wilIn addition to Boston Lager, Doyle's offers many Boston Beer Company suds derness going from bar to bar. How's the competition almost 30 on tap: Boston Ale, Cherry Wheat, Boston Brick Red, Angry Orchard Hard years later? Cider, and, come April, Samuel Adams 26.2 Boston Brew, a marathon- JK: To me, it's great to have company—because I know what it was like inspired beer made with wheat, coriander, and salt. (The number 26.2 refers when Sam Adams was the only craft beer around, and it was very hard. Now there are 2,500 craft brewers in the United to the length of the marathon course, not the alcohol States, and it's a lot more fun. It's a very collabby volume.) The Sam Adams line has made The orative and supportive group because we're all Boston Beer Company the most successful craft small. All of us have a market share of six or brewer in America. Today it is one of the largest American-owned beer companies in the country. continued on page 76 —JIM KOCH "Let's take beer where no beer has gone before." 74 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM 074-076_BC_SC_OTT_Spring13.2.indd 74 2/12/13 3:05 PM