When his father realized Koch was serious about starting a brewery, they went into the attic and dug out the recipe developed in the 1860s by his great-great grandfather Louis Koch. That became the basis for Boston Lager. Within a year, his marketing scored two boosts: taking the brand name from Samuel Adams, a Revolutionary War Patriot he found had a brewing connection, and getting the beer named the country’s best at a national brewing festival.

By 1990, Koch had exceeded his business plan multiple times, selling $21.2 million in beer that year. Four years later, revenue topped $128 million.

Rankling Microbrewers

To keep up with demand and avoid heavy capital investment in facilities, Koch began leasing excess capacity at large brewers in New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania. That rankled other microbrewers who had made large investments in equipment and felt mass production and marketing of beer was contrary to the ideals of the craft movement, according to Tom Acitelli, author of the book “The Audacity of Hops: The History of America’s Craft Beer Revolution.”

“He taught consumers what to expect in an American craft beer,” said Acitelli in a phone interview from his Cambridge, Massachusetts office. “It’s easy to look back now and assume it all would have worked out -- that good taste would have triumphed -- but it wasn’t inevitable and Jim Koch helped that along, big time.”

In 1995, Boston Beer sold shares in an initial public offering at $20 a share. Some Sam Adams drinkers found offers in six packs that allowed them to buy their stock for $15 a share. Its shares traded as high as $227.10 today in New York.

Today, the company sells more than 2.7 million barrels of beer, cider and malt beverage under the Sam Adams, Angry Orchard and Twisted Tea labels. Koch sees plenty of room for growth, noting that if craft beer continued to capture one percentage point market share each year, the sector won’t catch up to imports until 2020.

‘Rich, Happy’

The success also has inspired numerous other craft brewers into the business. There are 2,538 breweries in the country, more than at any time since at least 1887, according to the Brewers Association.

Koch, who mentors small businesses through a corporate philanthropic institute, said he offers one piece of advice to every entrepreneur.