Why We Love Samuel Adams
We are not talking about Sam Adams, the Statesman and Founding Father. He was brilliant, to be sure. But this is a Food Blog, so we’re talking about Sam Adams, the beer.
Recently, Chelsea and I have grown fond of “Sam Adams Light” (shock!) which has more body and flavor than most “regular” beers. Seriously, I buy Sam Light for the Flavor, not the reduced calories. Seriously.
Anyway, a few weeks ago, Chelsea brought home a 6-pack of the aforementioned hoppy goodness. We were disappointed to find that it was actually a 5-pack; one of the bottles had a misapplied cap, resulting in some moldy nastiness.
Chelsea decided to jump online and lodge a polite-but-formal complaint to the company. She completed a form on Sam Adams’ corporate Web site, and we promptly forgot about it.
…until the other day, when our mail included this envelope:
Inside, we found this letter:
To be clear, the author is the one-and-only Jim Koch… the founder and owner of Samuel Adams Brewery. You’ve probably seen him in countless TV ads, especially if you watch professional sports. That’s the guy, and he’s real. The dude is so humble, he refers to himself as “Brewer.” Not “Owner” or “President” or even “Grand Poobah”. Simply, “Brewer.”
We really loved the letter and were thrilled to find this, enclosed:
Yep, Jim Koch signed a $9.00 refund — a hand-written check! — for the entire 6-pack (5-pack?).
So, who says “big business” can’t be righteous and cool?
Awesome story, and a great example of customer service. They know how to earn customers, that’s for sure.
Seriously! We were very impressed. Not with the refund, mind you… that’s fairly standard Customer Service. It was the hand-written check and signed letter from The Man that took our collective breath away. Class class class.
It is a great story- thanks for sharing, Ben. I have heard stories about the organization from a friend who used to work there. Based on his experience about the place, I have to admit, this does not entirely surprise me… except that it’s still so unexpected, it does.