DYNAMISM IN DRINKS: WHO WINS YOUR 2014 VOTE?
Jim Koch, Samuel Adams (Boston Beer Company)
You don’t go to Germany and criticise beer purity law Reinheitsgebot, right? You do if you’re Jim Koch – the inspirational founder and brewer of Samuel Adams and craft beer pioneer.
In November Koch made a keynote speech (pictured) to mark the opening of the beer trade show, Brau Beviale, in Nuremberg, where he became the first non-German to receive the Bayerischer Bierorden (Bavarian Order of Beer) in the award’s 35 year-old history.
The event felt like a family gathering, and in some senses a homecoming, since Koch’s ancestors migrated from Germany to the States over 150 years ago, and the Samuel Adams founder was warmly received.
While he praised Germany as a “great beer country” he said the US now shared this same status, and used his platform to make some bold remarks on Reinheitsgebot.
“In the US we can choose any ingredients we want, and I believe in some ways the Reinheitsgebot has been a great foundation for an amazing beer tradition, but it needs to be opened up a little more, so brewers can use any ingredient they want,” he said.
“A brewer should be like a chef, not constrained. In some ways the Reinheitsgebot has served its purpose as a public health measure and it’s almost becoming like artistic censorship,” he added.
