Sam Adams; "Mega Swill" or a good mass produced brew?

To call Sam Adams mega-swill would be to base a conclusion solely on size. They have done an excellent job grabbing a share of the market while staying "true" to their product. I'm not a fan of everything they put out (that Cherry whatever is behind horrible), do enjoy a few (really like the Noble Pils), and won't ever complain if that's what I'm left drinking.

I totally agree. I asked if they were a "mega" now, based on their growth and nationwide distribution. I remember when they were a local micro!

But the word "swill" did not appear anywhere in my post, or in Dave's and my responses praising it.

I meant "to call" as a hypothetical and had no intent of calling out anyone's post specifically.

"Mega" for me has more to do with ethos than size.

Some numbers* for scaling purposes (2010 US shipments, in barrels):

AB 102M
Miller/Coors 61.5M
Pabst 5.68M
Sam Adams 2.26M
Yuengling 2.16M
Sierra Nevada 786k
New Belgium 661k
Bell's 154k
Dogfish Head 120k
New Glarus 91.9k (included because they distribute in WI only, which is impressive)
Great Lakes 91.2k
Schlafly 35.1k
Founders 24.5k
3 Floyds 15.0k
Alltech 12.0k
Sun King 5.02k
BBC Main & Clay 4.70k
BBC St Matt 1.95k
NABC 1.20k
Cumberland 990
Browning's 390 (edit: left them off first time)
Red Ear 20


*New Brewer 2010 Industry Review

Most people do not realize that Samuel Adams is brewed in Cincinnati. The Jamaica Plain facility is merely a pilot brewery/tourist destination.

About 1000 barrels in MA, about 565k barrels in OH, about 1.29M barrels in PA. That doesnt add up to other number I posted because there is some stuff included in total not included in breakdowns.

A mass produced beer of quality and commitment. While I don't care for some of there seasonal offerings, most are solid to excellent.

Agreed.

Doug W

I posted the sizes of a variety of breweries because I figure it is useful to work with numbers when discussing this stuff. If you are gonna call something mega, you should probably define it.

Anyway, I see a handful of numbers that are useful for defining things for practical reasons.

1. Tax purposes.
A. 60k barrels/year
B. 2M (or 6M) barrels/year

The first 60,000 barrels produced are taxed at a lower rate, provided the total amount produced is under 2 million (the paren is because there is a bill to change that to 6 million - this comes up later too).

2. Brewers Association definitions
A. 15k bbl/yr
B. 6M (or 2M) bbl/yr

The BA defines a brewery under 15k as a microbrewery and one above 6M (they changed it from 2M last year, for Sam Adams benefit, but its in sync with the proposed law on purpose) is a national brewery with regional being everything in between.

So I see 4 categories (the regional was too wide anyway):

National: greater than 6 million bbls
Large regional: 60k to 6M
Small regional: 15k to 60k
Micro: under 15k

There is also lots of talk about nanobreweries, small batch specialty stuff, I would guess that would fall somewhere under 300 bbl, maybe less.

As usual, lots of great info and opinions. As far as my reference to "swill" a bit harsh but just trying to see if SA falls into the like of AB or Miller. Swill seems to be a common definition of those brews on this forum. Overall, I think SA does a good job.

As usual, lots of great info and opinions. As far as my reference to "swill" a bit harsh but just trying to see if SA falls into the like of AB or Miller. Swill seems to be a common definition of those brews on this forum. Overall, I think SA does a good job.

I would call Yuengling a small version of AB or M/C. Sam Adams is a large version of Sierra Nevada or New Belgium. Basically, size has little to do with it.