The Boston Beer Company collection contains correspondence addressed to Gamaliel Bradford of Boston, Massachusetts, regarding the company's incoming shipments of supplies and outgoing shipments of beer. Suppliers of barley malt were the most frequent correspondents, and included firms from New York and New Hampshire. Other businesses from various locations, including New Orleans, Louisiana, requested shipments of the company's products, especially porter and pale ale, for use in local hotels. Samuel Kathrens, a frequent correspondent from New Orleans, provided information on the local beer industry and reported that "almost every Bottle" in a recent order for porter "was bursted and the corks driven all I got out of the three barrels was thirteen Bottles of Porter" (November 27, 1830). Several letters are composed on partially printed shipping receipts, and other financial accounts are interspersed throughout the collection. The material documents the early history of the company and of the beer industry in the early 19th-century United States.
The Boston Beer Company, incorporated on February 1, 1828, was founded by Gamaliel Bradford, Nathan Rice, Benjamin Thaxter, and Elijah Loring, and prospered until at least 1836. During the 1830s, the company contracted with suppliers in various locations throughout New England and exported barrels of its pale ale and porter to markets as distant as New Orleans, Louisiana. In addition to his work with the company, Bradford worked as a superintendant for the Massachusetts General Hospital.
The company is not related to the modern company operating under the same name.
