MANCHESTER — Jim Koch's first question on entering a room filled with Hartford Distributors sales staff: "Can I have a beer?"

With a cool glass of his own Samuel Adams draft in hand, Koch spoke Thursday about his journey in the craft beer industry and the role that Connecticut beer sellers have played in the success of his Boston Beer Co.

Koch (pronounced COOK) had nice things to say about Hartford Distributors' main brand, Anheuser-Busch, but he also said that the American beer drinker's palate has diversified and that the nation is entering "a golden age of beer."

"You HDI guys know, man cannot live on Bud alone," said Koch, 61, Boston Beer's founder and chairman.

Hartford Distributors Inc. has delivered Samuel Adams since the company merged last year with South Windsor-based Franklin Distributors. HDI is building an 80,000-square-foot addition to consolidate the operation on Chapel Road in Manchester, a project expected to be completed in June, CEO Ross Hollander said after Koch's talk.

Koch did not make any big announcements and he did not mention the slayings that occurred at HDI on Aug. 3 last year, when an employee shot and killed eight other workers before killing himself. The only mention that Hollander made of the massacre was to point to a framed letter on his desk from President Barack Obama, who expressed sympathy for the grievous loss.

Koch was focused on beer, a happy subject for him and the HDI sales workers, many of whom sipped their own Samuel Adams drafts while he spoke. When he first started brewing his Boston Lager in the mid-1980s, Koch said that the few widely available brands of American beer were like fast food, and that importers, offering their gourmet products, were challenged by the need for freshness.

His goal was to make the filet mignon of fresh American beers and his sales goal was to produce 65,000 cases a year by the end of five years. Instead, annual sales in those five years ramped up to about 1 million cases.

Today, Samuel Adams holds only 0.9 percent of the market share of beer sold in the U.S., but Koch said that's all right with him.

"I'll take tiny," he said. "I used to be microscopic. Someday we're gonna be small."

In the early years, he said he found that selling beer was much tougher than making it. None of the wholesalers in Massachusetts would sell his Samuel Adams Boston Lager, so he started distributing it himself, going from bar to bar with a briefcase containing several bottles, a couple of cold packs and a sleeve of cups.

"I learned the beer business as a distributor," Koch said. "I appreciate what you do because I don't have to do it anymore."

One of his first sales areas was the Hartford region and one of his first distributors was Franklin, then owned by Austin Stack, Koch said. He said it was gratifying to see Hartford Distributors, with its powerhouse Anheuser-Busch brands, and Franklin, with its more specialized products, come together.

"It's great to see you guys put strength with strength," he said.

Throughout his career as a beer maker, the sixth-generation brewmaster said his main competition has not been other, more widely sold brands, but ignorance and apathy about fresh craft beer. So his sales strategy is focused on educating beer drinkers about great brew, the kind of suds that Americans drank in the 19th century.

His company also stresses availability and visibility. Samuel Adams is the leading craft beer in the nation, and when he goes into a store, Koch said he wants to see that position reflected in the shelf space allocated to his brand.

Asked what he got from the talk, Hollander said he learned the depth of Koch's knowledge. As for the comparisons between Budweiser and Samuel Adams, Hollander said different people have different tastes, and that's fine.

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