Craft beer continues to require such hands-on sales calls. The segment occupies a niche in the $54 billion U.S. beer market, with about 6.5 percent market share, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Together, Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, which sells more than 200 brands including Budweiser and Beck’s, and MillerCoors LLC, a 70-brand joint venture of London-based SABMiller Plc and Denver-based Molson Coors Brewing Co., control about 80 percent of the U.S. beer market.

Boston Beer has 1.3 percent of the U.S. market, just behind DG Yuengling & Son Inc., the second-largest U.S.-owned brewing company with 1.5 percent share. Its owner -- and Koch’s friend - - Richard L. “Dick” Yuengling, has a fortune valued at more than $2.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg index.

“The Street generally likes underdogs like Boston Beer and the way that they are growing share by producing a better product,” said Kenneth Shea, a beverage industry analyst with Bloomberg Industries in Princeton, New Jersey. “The mass- produced, industrial brands tend to be bland and undifferentiated.”

To avoid tasting too similarly to his larger competitors, Koch samples every batch of beer the company produces and leads purchasing trips to Germany each year to buy hops, according to the company.

Sixth Generation

Koch is the sixth-generation oldest son in a row to be a brewer. Born in 1949, Koch grew up in Cincinnati, where his father was a brewmaster. The domestic beer business had been decimated by Prohibition, a period from 1920 to 1933 when the U.S. outlawed the production and sale of alcoholic beverages. Grain rationing in World War II then steered public tastes away from richer-flavored small batch beers to lighter-styled brands such as Budweiser and Coors.

The emergence of national television advertising and ease of transport allowed the major beer makers to dominate the market. Seeing no chance to be a brewmaster, Koch decided to pursue a different career.

After attending Harvard University for undergraduate and graduate school, Koch went to work for Boston Consulting Group in 1979, advising pulp and steel mills on manufacturing processes. When he decided he wanted to pursue his passion for beer, there were about a dozen craft brewers in the country, Koch said.

$60,000 Salary

“Everyone thought I was crazy, like I was leaving consulting to go make mud pies,” he said. His original business plan was to be selling $1 million worth of beer in five years, have eight employees and pay himself a salary of $60,000.