Massachusetts Breweries History: The Boston Beer Company The Boston Beer Company was founded in 1985 by Jim Koch. Jim's family has been in the beer business for over 100 years. Jim's great-great grandfather, Louis Koch, brewed beer 150 years ago in Germany, and Jim returns there every year to buy the same Hallertau and Tettnang hops that his forefather once used. Louis Koch founded a brewery in St. Louis in 1860 where he brewed a wonderful beer called Louis Koch Lager. Jim's great grandfather, Charles Jerome Koch, was brewmaster at several breweries. Jim's father, Charles Joseph Koch Jr., began as an apprentice brewmaster in 1942 and in 1948 he received his degree from the Siebel Institute, the same school where Jim's grandfather had trained 40 years earlier. When Jim started the Boston beer Company he changed the name of his family beer from Louis Koch Lager to Samuel Adams Boston Lager to reflect the tradition of the beer's new home and introduced Samuel Adams to Boston in April of 1985. In 1993 Samuel Adams creates the first scratch-in-sniff ad campaign for beer and is selected "Brewery of the Year." In 1997 Boston Beer introduced Longshot beers using homebrewers' recipes.