Assertion Supported
Jim Koch: Heineken and Beck's exported non-compliant, inferior beer to America
“They send us Heineken that's outlawed in Germany because of Germany's strict beer purity law, and the Becks they send us isn't the same Becks they have in Germany. They add forbidden adjuncts to it.”
Assertion Partly supported
Koch: Heineken and Beck's exported beer with ingredients outlawed in Germany
“They send us Heineken that's outlawed in Germany because of Germany's strict beer purity law, and the Becks they send us isn't the same Becks they have in Germany. They add forbidden adjuncts to it.”
Opinion
Koch: Walmart is surprisingly supportive and nice to small emerging brands
“You know, sometimes they have this reputation of being like really cutthroat and predatory and so forth, but they're nice to little guys.”
Opinion
Jim Koch: America replaced Europe as the global center of brewing innovation
“The place where brewers from all over the world look for inspiration and innovation is not Germany. It's not Belgium. It's not England. It's America. We are teaching the rest of the world how to make great beer.”
Assertion Contradicted
Jim Koch: Truly was the first hard seltzer in the United States
“Truly was the first hard seltzer here.”
Insight
Jim Koch: The biggest risks are dangerous but not actually scary
“And it's the difference in life between things that are scary and things that are dangerous. And there are plenty of things that are scary but aren't dangerous. And there are things that are dangerous, but not scary. And those are the things that get you.”
Opinion
Koch: Traditional IPOs are rigged for institutional insider profits
“It is all for their buddies at the big institutions to buy the shares and make a bunch of money”
Assertion Partly supported
Koch: Boston Beer raised $65M through mail-in checks via six-pack coupons
“We got a hundred and thirty-some thousand people who sent in their checks. We got sixty-five million dollars And that was the first time something like that had been done, and other people have continued to do it, followed up on it.”
Insight
Koch: Unfamiliar products must target early adopters over mainstream volume
“When you're at the leading edge Of a product that is very unfamiliar to people, even a category that is unfamiliar, you don't want to go where all the volume is in the mainstream. You know, you want to just find a handful of people who will get what you're try…”
Insight
Koch: Founders should not 'play company' by spending on offices and assistants
“Don't play company. You start out, and you think, well, I'm starting a company. I need to have the things that a company has, you know. I need to have an office. I need to have You know, a computer. I need to have, you know, an executive assistant. Well, BS, y…”
Insight
Koch: Brand building is no harder today than it was in 1985
“I think it's the latter. It's never been easy. I mean, it's, building a brand is just it's hard work, and it's a miracle when it happens. I mean, you're creating something out of nothing. It's the, you know, the 21st century version of alchemy, and that was al…”
Insight
Koch: Early-stage investor equity is the most expensive capital available
“Early stage investor money is the most expensive money
Out there.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Koch: A 30-cent price increase can double a beverage brand's profit margin
“Instead of whatever it is now, a dollar, it can be a dollar 30. I mean, people can afford that, and that extra price probably doubles your margin.”
What-if
Koch: I don't know if scaling to billions made me any happier
“I can't tell whether I would have been just as happy or happier had I had the intended outcome instead of the unexpected outcome.”
Assertion Partly supported
Jim Koch: Samuel Adams Utopias is the strongest naturally fermented beer ever
“We make a special beer. We release it every two years. It's called Samuel Adams Utopias. It weighs in at about 60 proof. It's the strongest naturally fermented beer in history. And we sell it for 250 dollars a bottle, and we sell out.”
Insight
Jim Koch: Beer, wine, and spirits are acquired tastes counter to biology
“Alcohol is basically divided into three realms. There's beer, There's wine and there's hard liquor or spirits. And those are three lanes. Okay. And an insight about that is, you know, they're all acquired tastes. They all have a flavor structure that as human …”
Assertion Supported
Jim Koch: Boston Beer invented ion separation technology to remove sulfur off-notes
“The base that Coors had was not clean. Had some off notes of sulfur that came out of the fermentation. They didn't know how to get those molecules out of there, so we had to, I mean, it's a little complicated, but we had to develop this ion separation technolo…”
Assertion Partly supported
Jim Koch: Angry Orchard imports European apples because America lacks cider apples
“So we still bring in apples from Normandy and From Northern Italy, because true cider apples are not grown in the US anymore, and we wanted to make this from true cider apples, not grocery store apples.”
Opinion
Jim Koch: Heineken 0.0 was the first truly good non-alcoholic beer
“And then I was at a beer conference, and I tasted the first non-alcoholic beer that was really good, and that was actually Heineken Zero Zero. And I remember to this day, it was like six years ago in San Diego, and I poured it to see, well, I'll see if this on…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jim Koch: Boston Beer's non-alcoholic hazy IPA matched alcoholic versions in blind-tastings
“At the end of the day, we got a hazy IPA that was non-alcoholic and had the same taste scores as the alcoholic version of it. When people tasted it blind, they could not identify it. As a non-alcoholic beer. And the scores on it that we were getting were equal…”
Insight
Jim Koch: Business outliers provide the most valuable learning
“When I was a consultant, what always fascinated me were the outliers, because that's where the real learning was.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Jim Koch: Imported beers in the U.S. were almost always stale
“Beer has about a four to five month shelf life, and the imported beers were almost always stale.”
Insight
Koch: Evaluate startup expenses only by whether they improve the core product
“You know, I just asked myself, am I spending money on things that are going to make the beer better, or am I spending money on things just because that's what you're supposed to spend it on?”
Assertion Supported
Boston Beer Company offered its IPO shares directly via six-pack coupons
“We put coupons on the six packs that allowed you to buy 33 shares of Boston Beer Company at 15 dollars a share, so it was 495 dollars.”
Jim Koch