Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream Hosts San Diego Pitch Room Competition and Small Business Speed Coaching Event

SAN DIEGO, June 10, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream, a micro-lending and coaching program for small business owners working in food, beverage and craft brewing, announced it will host its regional Pitch Room competition and small business Speed Coaching event in San Diego on Monday, June 15^th.

The Brewing the American Dream Pitch Room is a national competition that helps food and beverage business owners perfect the art of the sales pitch and get exposure to some of the local leaders in the food and beverage industry. Starting at 5:00 p.m. PDT at the Energy Innovation Center (4760 Clairemont Mesa Blvd), entrepreneurs will present their best sales pitch in front of a panel of expert judges, including:

• Jennifer Glanville, Director of Brewery Programs, Samuel Adams
• Dave Jones, Director of Operations, Verant Group
• Tim Perreira, VP of Food and Beverage, Islands Restaurants
• Nels Jensen, Editor-in-Chief, San Diego Business Journal
• Rich Pagan, VP of Sales, Crest Beverage

After providing critical, impactful advice to each of the participants, the judges will select a winner based on criteria including quality of pitch, creativity, passion, and product viability. The San Diego winners will be invited to participate in the New York City finals in December where they will compete with other regional winners from across the country for a $10,000 business grant, extended mentoring from Samuel Adams and the potential for their product to be sold at retail locations.

More information for anyone interested in applying can be found at http://btad.samueladams.com/en/about/pitch-room.aspx. Applications close Thursday, June 11th, at 10:00 am PDT.

"Through our Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream program, we have worked with hundreds of small businesses in San Diego since our first Speed Coaching event here in 2012," commented Jim Koch, brewer and founder of Samuel Adams. "We're very excited about expanding our efforts in the area through our Pitch Room competition, and look forward to working with passionate food and beverage entrepreneurs on how best to position and sell their products."

Koch noted that Ramona-based ChuckAlek Independent Brewers is a great example of a local business that has experienced the results of being part of the program. In addition to receiving a loan, owners Grant Fraley and Marta Jankowska have also had mentoring to help their brewery grow and evolve. They just finished their Brewing and Business Experienceship at Samuel Adams in Boston, where they received extensive coaching and brewed a collaboration beer, which will be available on draft for a limited time in San Diego starting in the summer. According to the couple, they "learned more in two days than we have in years of business."

Small Business Speed Coaching in San Diego
The Speed Coaching portion of the evening, held from 6:30 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. PDT, is a free event open to any small business owner in the food, beverage, and craft brewing industries. At the event, which is hosted in partnership with Accion, the nation's leading nonprofit provider of small business capital and coaching,  attendees will participate in up to six 20-minute, high-impact coaching sessions in areas such as sales and distribution, packaging, and finance with expert coaches from Samuel Adams, local area businesses, and Accion.  Entrepreneurs are encouraged to bring questions about specific business challenges they face, as well as samples of packaging, point-of-sale items, and other material on which they would like feedback.

Small business owners can register online for this free event at http://bit.ly/1KaQdQp.

Year-Round Lending to Support Craft Brewing Competition
Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream continues to support San Diego small businesses year-round, in partnership with Accion, by providing microloans to entrepreneurs who are often shut out of traditional lending institutions. Since 2012, the program has seen beyond the barriers that many of these viable small businesses face – from lack of credit to requests for small loan amounts to the volatile nature of the food and beverage industry – and provided around $225,000 to nearly 25 entrepreneurs in the San Diego area.

Brewing the American Dream Inspiration and Impact
Samuel Adams is celebrating 31 years of brewing, and despite the craft brewery's success, Jim Koch hasn't forgotten how hard it is to start and run a successful small business. That's why he created Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream, a unique program that provides the two things he wishes he had when starting Samuel Adams: financing and real-world business advice.

Since 2008, through the support of Brewing the American Dream, Accion has lent more than $4.1 million to nearly 475 businesses. Just as important, the program has coached or mentored over 4,000 businesses and created or saved more than 2,000 jobs. To learn more please visit: http://btad.samueladams.com.

Samuel Adams, Sam Adams, Samuel Adams Boston Lager, and Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream are registered trademarks of The Boston Beer Company.

About Samuel Adams and The Boston Beer Company
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. Inspired and unafraid to challenge conventional thinking about beer, Jim brought the recipe to life in his kitchen. Pleased with the results of his work, Jim decided to sample his beer with bars in Boston in the hopes that drinkers would appreciate the complex, full-flavored beer he brewed fresh in America. That beer was aptly named Samuel Adams Boston Lager, in recognition of one of our nation's great founding fathers, a man of independent mind and spirit. Little did Jim know at the time, Samuel Adams Boston Lager would soon become a catalyst of the American craft beer revolution.

Today, The Boston Beer Company brews more than 60 styles of beer. It relentlessly pursues the development of new styles and the perfection of classic beers by searching the world for the finest ingredients. Using the traditional four vessel brewing process, the Company often takes extra steps like dry-hopping, barrel-aging, four vessel brewing, and a secondary fermentation known as krausening. The Company has also pioneered another revolution, the 'extreme beer' movement, where it seeks to challenge drinker's perceptions of what beer can be. The Boston Beer Company has been committed to elevating the image of American craft beer by entering festivals and competitions around the globe, and is one of the world's most awarded breweries at international beer competitions. As an independent company, brewing quality beer remains its single focus. Although Samuel Adams beer is America's leading craft brewer, it accounts for only one percent of the U.S. beer market. The Boston Beer Company will continue its independently-minded quest to brew great beer and to advocate for the growth of craft beer across America. For more information, please visit www.samueladams.com.

About Accion in the U.S.
In seeking a partner for Samuel Adams' Brewing the American Dream the company turned to Accion to facilitate lending to hardworking business owners seeking to grow. As the largest nationwide nonprofit micro-and small business lending network in the United States, Accion connects small business owners with the accessible financing and advice it takes to create or grow healthy businesses. Since 1991, members of the Accion U.S. Network have collectively made over 54,000 loans, totaling over $454 million. Additionally, over 500,000 business owners across the nation have turned to Accion for financial and business advice via workshops, online tools, and one-on-one consultations. Globally, Accion is a pioneer in microfinance, reaching millions of individuals through its international network of partners. For more information on Accion small business loans in the United States, please visit us.accion.org (https://us.accion.org).

SOURCE Samuel Adams Boston Beer

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