Boston Beer, Germany's Weihenstephan Team Up

GEORGE FREY

FREISING, Germany (AP) — The Boston Beer Co., maker of Samuel Adams, will team up with a venerable German brewery to jointly produce a new craft beer to be marketed in Germany and the U.S. next spring.

Boston Beer founder and master brewer Jim Koch and Josef Schraedler, managing director of Weihenstephan, told The Associated Press Wednesday that their two companies have been working together for nearly two years on the beer, which they will make and market jointly.

It has yet to be named, but will be marketed in bottles with corks instead of the usual metal caps. It will pack a punch, with more than 10 percent alcohol. Both men described it as a Champagne-like "crisp pale brew."

The Weihenstephan brewery, owned by the state of Bavaria, dates back to 1040 when Benedictine monks began making beer at their cloister outside Munich.

The new beer will also follow Germany's famed Reinheitsgebot, or purity law, which stipulates that beer can be brewed with only four ingredients: water, malt, hops and yeast.