How Samuel Adams’ Jim Koch Turned a 15-State Ban into the Ultimate Marketing Power Move You Can’t Ignore

Many business owners would recoil in horror if they found out their product was banned in 15 states. For Jim Koch, it’s a point of pride.

“It makes me smile,” he said with a laugh at an event in Manhattan.

The founder of Samuel Adams can certainly afford that kind of infamy surrounding Utopias, the company’s specialty biennial release with an ABV closer to most liquors than a Boston Lager. This year’s batch clocks in at 30%, making it one of the strongest beers ever. Due to its high alcohol content, it is illegal to sell in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia.

Credit: Boston Beer Co.

At a tasting at Pete’s Tavern in Gramercy Park on Wednesday, Koch admitted the company doesn’t stand to gain much financially from a limited-release specialty drink in a 24.5-oz bottle. But, he said, it’s worth playing to the fine alcohol connoisseurs and pushing the form of brewing — even if it may break certain states’ laws.

“ We are giving people something that they’ve never had before,” Koch said. “ It’s $250 for a bottle of beer, but it is a beer that we demonstrated can stand alongside some of the greatest alcoholic beverages in the world.”

Related: I Was a Judge for Samuel Adams’s Food and Beer Contest

Aged in barrels for up to 30 years, the beer has hints of vanilla and sweet wine, accompanied by a strong kick that doesn’t quite reach the full sting of typical booze. The product is not distilled — that would make it bourbon — and has been released since 2002, every cycle coming with a different flavor profile and collectible bottles.

This desire to push the limits of brewing, Koch says, marks a distinctly American characteristic in the global craft brewing ecosystem.

“[German brewers] talk about, ‘How will we make this beer the same way we made it 200 years ago?’ And that’s fine. But as an American, I’m like, so you haven’t had a good idea for 200 years?” he joked. “Where is innovation? Where is creativity?”

Koch’s passion for craft brewing goes back to the early 1980s, when he started brewing batches of an old family recipe — better known today as Boston Lager — in his kitchen in Newton, MA. At that point, he said, American beer was a joke, and he wanted to start a modest beer company that would challenge that perception. His very first five-year plan for Samuel Adams included growing to a company of eight people and making enough to pay himself $75,000. That trajectory was very quickly altered as soon as his beer hit the market.

“Luckily, while I was terribly  wrong, I was terribly wrong in the right direction,” he said.

Koch’s number one piece of advice to new founders trying to grow their own business? You can’t be a copycat.

“ You’ve only got a real business if your product is either better than the alternatives or cheaper,” he said. “If you’re not, you’re not adding any value to the consumer.”

Many business owners would recoil in horror if they found out their product was banned in 15 states. For Jim Koch, it’s a point of pride.

“It makes me smile,” he said with a laugh at an event in Manhattan.