To open a conversation about craft beer in 2025, Boston Beer founder and CEO Jim Koch and Dogfish Head co-founder Sam Calagione went back about 15 years to revisit a beer they collaborated on nearly a decade before they joined their companies.
The respective founders of Samuel Adams and Dogfish Head dreamed up a beer for the 2011 version of SAVOR, the upscale beer and food pairing event the Brewers Association (BA) hosted for more than a decade. Called Savor Flowers, it was an ale brewed with the experimental hop that would become Mosaic; dried hibiscus, lavender, jasmine and rosebuds; and rosewater as its liquid base.
Intended to be a one-time-only release in 2011, the breweries brewed Savor Flowers for this year’s beer brunch with media members.
Koch and Calagione developed the beer’s recipe through hand-written letters, which Koch called a “uniquely gratifying experience.”
“It was a very great pleasure working with Sam,” Koch said last week during the company’s annual Media Brunch in Denver.
“We knew each other from industry events, and being on the BA board together, from doing battle with the big brewers who were basically trying to put us out of business, and we won that battle, right? ABI [Anheuser-Busch InBev] was trying to put both of us out of business. And, well, guess what? We’re still here.”
Neither knew it at the time, but that collaboration opened the door to a broader relationship that resulted in the 2019 merger under the Boston Beer umbrella. During a brew day in Boston, Calagione recalled his realization that Dogfish Head and Sam Adams shared similar values, which he recapped for his wife and co-founder Mariah Calagione.
“They’re just like us,” he remembered telling her. “They want to win, take brewing and recipe development and the creative journey really seriously, but they don’t take themselves too seriously. They have a lot of fun.”
To continue the spirit of collaboration, Dogfish Head has released Triple Decadence World Wide Stout, created to celebrate the brewery’s 30th anniversary. The 15% ABV imperial stout is a blend of three iterations of Dogfish Head’s World Wide Stout series, first released in 1999 – one aged in Palo Santo, one in Let’s Get Lost Whiskey barrels and one in Samuel Adams’ Utopias barrels.
Calagione said he was “super proud” to include Utopias in World Wide’s story, as it’s “the one beverage that Boston Beer makes that touches every single one of our production facilities.”
Utopias – Samuel Adams’ high ABV limited release that attempts to push the boundaries of beer – is brewed in the company’s Ohio facility, aged in barrels in Pennsylvania and is bottled in Dogfish Head’s Milton, Delaware brewery, with packaging help from Samuel Adams’ Boston production team.
“So you literally taste the blood, sweat and tears of every one of our coworkers and every one of our production facilities when you enjoy Utopias or the Utopias barrel-aged World Wide Stout,” Calagione said.
Boston Beer is “finalizing” the 2025 Utopias release. Koch shared that the latest iteration checks in at 30% ABV, the highest alcohol percentage for the brand yet and 2% above 2023’s release (28% ABV).
“I’m very proud to say it’s illegal in 15 states, and I’m hoping for more,” Koch said.
Because of the alcohol content, Boston Beer had to create “a special building” in Pennsylvania to store the Utopias barrels, “because at this level of alcohol, the air in the building will explode.”
“So the building has to be built to explode and have the side blow off of it without hurting anybody,” Koch said.
“This is fun stuff,” he continued. “Sounds a little demented, but that’s always been a thread of craft brewing is an adventurousness and a daring to do semi-crazy things just to see where this will take us.”
Brewing the American Dream Experienceship Winners: Moor’s Brewing
Each year, Koch and Calagione share the stage with the winner of the company’s Brewing the American Dream (BTAD) Business and Brewing Experienceship, a year-long intensive relationship with expanded coaching from Boston Beer leaders. Chicago-based Moor’s Brewing was announced as the 2025 winner in June.
Moor’s Brewing co-founders Jamhal Johnson and Damon Patton discussed their ambitions to become the first Black-owned national distributed craft brewery.
“We founded this company on Juneteenth of 2021, trying to make the Blackest beer company we could ever put together,” Patton said. “I think we’ve been successful. The iconography people are resonating with.”
Patton, who serves as the brewery’s CEO, explained the origin of Moor’s labels, which feature a version of The African King Caspar, a 1654 painting by Dutch artist Hendrik Heerschop.
“It’s supposed to depict the Moorish king who gave Jesus the frankincense and myrrh in that manger story,” Patton said. “We thought it was cool. We also thought it looked like Jamhal’s cousin and my cousin, so we added the little chains and the crown and the ring – hiphopped him up a little bit, made him ours.”
Through Moor’s, the co-founders hope to welcome people who currently don’t drink craft to the fold, Johnson said.
“We created a brand that speaks to those people and speaks to the general beer lovers at large,” he said. “We make great beer. We make beer that’s palatable and pairs well with all foods. We’re not super big on the heavy beers. We like light beers, the easy drinkers that just taste great.”
The team will travel to Boston for coaching and a collaboration brew.