Sam Adams was one of the very first American beers I liked. I had thought that American beer was all Macro beers, and despaired of finding anything like the local brews I'd enjoyed in Britain. Until I tried a Sam Adams at a Boston restaurant. Samuel Adams beers were born in 1984 when Jim Koch, the fifth-generation, first born son to follow in his family's brewing footsteps, brewed a batch of beer in his kitchen using the original family recipe for Louis Koch Lager. Koch's ancestor, Louis Koch, brewed and sold Louis Koch Lager in 1860 in St. Louis, Missouri until Prohibition, and when Prohibition was repealed, until the early 1950s.

Koch, a Harvard-educated M.B.A., left his job to start the Boston Beer Company in 1984, with co-founders Harry M. Rubin, and Lorenzo Lamadrid. In April 1985, a modified version of the Koch family recipe was re-introduced as Samuel Adams Boston Lager. In July 1985, Samuel Adams Boston Lager was voted "Best Beer in America" at the Great American Beer Festival. At first, Sam Adams beer was brewed under contract at a variety of breweries, but eventually, as the craft beer movement blossomed then exploded, they began to acquire breweries of their own, and now brew almost all of their beers. They now offer as many as 16 different brews at any given time, though typically four of them are seasonal. They are currently the largest American Craft Beer brewery, and trade on the New York Stock Exchange as The Boston Beer Company.

I picked up a 12 pack Summer Styles Variety Pack, and will review all of them. The 12 bottles of beer (purchased for a mere $12.99 at the Bargain Grocery Outlet) consisted of two bottles each of Boston Lager, Boston Lager Light, Summer Ale, Blackberry Wit, Pale Ale and Latitude 48 IPA.