The Boston Beer Company, brewer extraordinaire of Sam Adams, is trying to hold on to their official designation as a “craft beer,” according to the New York Times.
According to the Brewers Association, the brewery is on the verge of outgrowing its coveted craft status, defined as producing fewer than two million barrels a year.
The company is eager to keep the designation not only for its cache (flavor over ‘drinkability’), but also for its tax benefits — brewers who produce fewer than two million barrels per year are subject to lower excise taxes than the larger brewers. Boston Beer president Jim Koch remarked to the Times, “If we’re not a craft brewer, what else are we? We’re certainly not Budweiser.”
Hoping to maintain that crafty status, Koch went to Washington where Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Idaho Senator Micahel D. Crapo are fighting for a bill they introduced six months ago that increases the yearly production limit on “craft” breweries from two million to six million barrels. Koch predicted that Boston Beer would surpass the two-million mark by 2012.
Full Story at The NY Times via The Huffington Post
