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Lager Brewery, the home of the Koch family–owned business that brewed between the 1860s and the 1880s. All that remained were a few stacked stones along the sidewalk and the wooden brick floor on which we were now standing.

    On the southeast corner of Sydney and Buel Streeets, St. Louis
Louis Koch’s Brewery. Courtesy Jim Koch.
    Well preserved and black with the brewer’s pitch used to line the inside of wooden barrels, the 4 × 6 × 2-inch wooden bricks was all that remained of the cooperage area of the brewery. It was the area where wooden barrels were built and reconditioned for beer.

    Jim Koch and his father, Charles Joseph, in 1984 chipping away masonry souvenirs from the site of the Louis Koch’s Brewery in St. Louis. The Anheuser-Busch Brewery is centered in the background. On the southeast corner of Sydney and Buel Streeets, St. Louis
Louis Koch’s Brewery. Courtesy Jim Koch.
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    SAMUEL ADAMS 1880
    Neither an American nor a European-style pilsener, Samuel Adams Boston Lager is a re-creation of a historical American-type golden, hinting-at-amber, lager beer. Full-flavored, with a delicate proportion of dark caramel malt complemented by the unique flavor and floral character of German-grown hops, it’s every bit as refreshing as classic pilsener. The Louis Koch Lager Brewery created a beer of its time, forgotten until Jim Koch resurrected it. Here is a recipe that may approach today’s Samuel Adams Boston Lager, as well as the lager at the family’s 1880 brewery. This recipe can be found in About the Recipes.
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    We each took a brick as a souvenir and as we approached the car, Jim’s gait quickened. He opened the trunk and took out a sledgehammer. Returning to the wall, he and his father wailed on the stone in the shadow of the world’s largest brewing company. Pieces of the wall crumbled. The two men lifted a few chunks of foundation wall and placed them in the trunk of the car. And left the vacant lot to its destiny.
    Since then I have heard Jim remind brewers several times that people DRINK the BEER. It is not a commodity, a label, an added flavor, nor market research. It has soul and heart. I would add, so do the people who make it. Jim has nurtured the new family brewery as one of the world’s leading brewers of specialty craft beers in the true spirit of a microbrewery.
    It’s true, Samuel Adams Boston Lager started as a homebrew. I brewed the first batch in my kitchen in 1984 using a recipe of my great-great-great-grandfather’s from the 1870s…I fell in love with the taste of this beer. I thought that if I could taste this beer every day of my life, I’d be a happy man. That was my motivation for starting the Boston Beer Company.
    â€”J IM K OCH, FOUNDING PRESIDENT /CEO, B OSTON B EER C OMPANY
    Message on a Bottle
Anchor Brewing Company
    S OMEWHERE in the United States there is a unique, old and majestic pipe organ. Its spirit comes alive with the touch of human endeavor. It is a very special organ, because it keeps a secret hidden somewhere in its dark recesses—a very special message. Carved in small letters where no one will notice until perhaps another century is the simple message: “Relax. Don’t worry. Have a homebrew.”
    It’s the message of a homebrewer who specializes in reconstructing these grand pipe organs.
    In 1986 I had the opportunity to tell this story to Fritz Maytag, president of the Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco. We were both enjoying the beers of our choice. He cracked a small smile, glanced aside quickly and returned with a story of his own.
    Fritz knew a very skilled and proud violinmaker who was in love. He’d confided to Fritz that written somewhere inside his most recent violin was a message that, in all probability, no one would notice for another thousand years. The message read: “I love you Susan.”
    I wonder how many other people take pride in their skills and