Ring in the New Year with Craft Beer

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Cheers to the New Year with a full-flavored craft beer. A recent survey conducted by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media found that men prefer craft beer as their drink of choice when the ball drops on New Year’s Eve. When stocking up for New Year’s Eve parties, pick up a selection of craft beer, such as Samuel Adams® Winter Classics Collection, to make any guys’ New Year’s Eve more enjoyable.

“2007 was a great year for appreciating craft beer, so I’m not surprised that more people will be raising their steins to ring in 2008.”

“Beer has been bringing people together for festive occasions long before champagne was even invented,” says Jim Koch, founder and brewer of Samuel Adams. “2007 was a great year for appreciating craft beer, so I’m not surprised that more people will be raising their steins to ring in 2008.”

Wine and chocolates are no longer the chosen gifts for holiday hosts and hostesses. Fifty-nine percent of survey respondents said they’d prefer to be given craft beer as a host/hostess gift. To really wow the host and fellow party goers, kick off the New Year in extreme style with beer unlike any other: Samuel Adams Utopias®, the world’s strongest beer with an alcohol content of 27%. Samuel Adams Utopias suits a festive celebration perfectly because it’s a beer meant to be sipped from a snifter glass like a fine Port, Cognac or Sherry.

For people planning to stay in this New Year’s Eve instead of fighting the crowds or the weather, full-flavored craft beer is the preferred beverage to keep warm. When asked what their preferred beverage was when avoiding the winter weather outside, respondents said:

Craft beer		35 percent
Spirits		29 percent
Wine		14 percent

The findings presented are the result of 315 telephone interviews of men ages 21-34, conducted using a national random digit dialing system methodology from December 13 to December 15, 2007 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. The survey was conducted among a representative sample of men 21 to 34 years of age in the continental United States. Survey data were weighted for sample balancing by age and census region. The margin of sampling error for the total sample is plus/minus 6 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.

About Roper

Roper Public Affairs, a division of GfK Custom Research North America, was founded in 1923 and is a leading global marketing research and consulting firm with headquarters in New York. Bringing together some of the most renowned U.S. and European research firms in a unified global network, GfK is the fifth largest survey research firm in the world.

THE BOSTON BEER COMPANY BACKGROUND:

The Boston Beer Company began in 1984 with a generations-old family recipe that founder and brewer Jim Koch uncovered in his father’s attic. After bringing the recipe to life in his kitchen, Jim brought it to bars in Boston with the belief that drinkers would appreciate a complex, full-flavored beer, brewed fresh in America. That beer was Samuel Adams Boston Lager^®, and it helped catalyze what became known as the American craft beer revolution.

Today, the Company brews more than 21 styles of beer. The Company uses the traditional four-vessel brewing process and often takes extra steps like dry-hopping and a secondary fermentation known as krausening. It passionately pursues the development of new styles and the perfection of its classic beers by constantly searching for the world’s finest ingredients. While resurrecting traditional brewing methods, the Company has earned a reputation as a pioneer in another revolution, the “extreme beer” movement, where it seeks to challenge drinkers’ perceptions of what beer can be. The Boston Beer Company strives to elevate the image of American craft beer by entering festivals and competitions the world over, and in the past five years it has won more awards in international beer competitions than any other brewery in the world. The Company remains independent, and brewing quality beer remains its single focus. While Samuel Adams is the country’s largest-selling craft beer, it accounts for only about one-half of one percent of the U.S. beer market. For more information, please visit www.samueladams.com.