Boston Beer Company

How The Boston Beer Company Crafted Its Path to Corporate Storytelling

The Boston Beer Company’s 40th anniversary acted as a catalyst for the company to proactively preserve its rich history and create an unforgettable experience to showcase its legacy of leading the craft beer revolution. The Boston Beer Company collaborated with History Factory to:

• Establish centralized physical and digital hubs for The Boston Beer Company’s archives, ensuring seamless access to and preservation of historical materials.
• Develop and implement a comprehensive heritage storytelling strategy to highlight The Boston Beer Company’s continued leadership in the craft beer space.
• Design and launch a special traveling pop-up exhibition to celebrate and share the company’s rich history with a wider audience.

A Strategic Partnership on Tap

In 1984, Jim Koch brewed the inaugural batch of Samuel Adams Boston Lager in his kitchen after discovering his great-great-grandfather’s recipe tucked away in his father’s attic. This humble beginning sparked a revolution in American craft brewing. Today, The Boston Beer Company, under Koch’s visionary leadership, is hailed as a pivotal force in the craft beer movement. The Boston Beer Company’s commitment to innovation extends beyond traditional brewing, as evidenced by its leadership in the “beyond beer” category with brands such as Twisted Tea, Angry Orchard and Truly. 

As The Boston Beer Company approached its 40th anniversary, several critical challenges surfaced. Despite its undeniable impact on the craft brewing movement, implementing a cohesive approach to preserve the company’s history proved challenging. From missing out on important details of their history of craftmaking in earned media opportunities to on-the-ground activations in brand headquarters, breweries, taprooms, and distributors nationwide, the opportunity to tell a richer story about their past wasn’t coming to fruition. Compounding this, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company had a significant influx of new employees, many of whom were unaware of its storied past.

Brewing Heritage

History Factory and The Boston Beer Company teamed up to conduct archival assessments through site visits to locations including Boston, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Ohio, coupled with stakeholder interviews to gather valuable insights. We used these insights to deliver a plan to ensure that the archives program would serve the company’s business needs today and in the future. 

As we continue to execute the plan, the archives program enables greater access to and use of archival materials to support the day-to-day work of The Boston Beer Company’s communicators and marketers. This enhancement ensures that the company’s heritage is effectively integrated into marketing campaigns, internal communications and brand storytelling. Additionally, the archives serves as a valuable resource, providing historical insights to inspire innovations while staying true to the company’s heritage. And as a part of that effort, setting up a digital archives for the company is a critical component of making the materials accessible for the long term. 

The benefit of this work was underscored by Samual Adams’ 40th anniversary milestone event. What could have been a simple history exhibit of the iconic beer label’s past became a team of archivists, designers and production experts working tirelessly to curate and design an exhibit celebrating The Boston Beer Company’s 40 years of craft. The exhibit—organized into four distinct categories and spotlighting artifacts from the company’s founding story through today—was launched at Sam Adams’ 40th Anniversary Festival. By leveraging these archival materials, The Boston Beer Company was able to create more compelling and authentic content to showcase within the pop-up exhibit—while strengthening its connections with employees and customers. The event was so successful in Boston that it was later expanded at an all employee event in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Fermenting Results and Engaging Audiences 

At the 40th Anniversary Festival, History Factory employees played a pivotal role by acting as history experts on the ground. For the nearly 600 visitors in attendance, our team was able to bring The Boston Beer Company’s history to life on another level through storytelling with a human touch. We also leveraged face-to-face interactions to encourage both drinkers and coworkers to contribute their own artifacts to the archives, fostering two-way engagement. This initiative not only enriched our collection but also created a collaborative environment where everyone could actively participate in preserving and celebrating the company’s shared history. As The Boston Beer Company looks ahead, the archives program and storytelling initiatives will continue to anchor audiences in the company’s rich legacy of leading the craft beer movement—while also evolving to capture and celebrate the history The Boston Beer Company continues to make today and in the future.