Massachussetts mayor boycotts Sam Adams beer over Trump

A Massachusetts mayor has said he will never drink Sam Adams again after comments made by its co-founder Jim Koch in support of US President Donald Trump’s corporate tax cuts.

Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone

Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone made the declaration on Twitter, after learning that Jim Koch, chairman of Boston Beer, whose grandfather created the recipe for Samuel Adams Boston Lager, had joined other business leaders for a dinner with Trump on 7 August.

At the meal, Koch praised Trump’s tax cuts saying that it would help his business, according to a White House transcript.

Last year Trump lowered taxes for the wealthy and cut corporate taxes for American companies to 21%, allowing income from overseas to be taxed at about half that rate, as low as 10%.

“I guess I’m sort of speaking on behalf of what is now 7,000 small brewers in the United States, ” Koch began. “When I started Sam Adams, American beer was a joke, and it pissed me off. And now, American brewers make the best beer in the world. And the tax reform was a very big deal for all of us, because 85 percent of the beer made in the United States is owned by foreign companies.

“I mean, Americans – I’m the largest American-owned brewery at 2 percent market share. We were paying 38-percent taxes – and competing against people who were paying 20. And now we have a level playing field, and we’re going to kick their ass.”

Reacting to his support for the cuts, Curtatone said he would not drink Sam Adams beer again, and questioned Koch’s support for the President given his most recent policy on immigration that led to the separate of families at US borders.

The tax cuts imposed by Trump meanwhile have attracted split opinion. While many business have praised the move, others have criticised it for being a one-sided strategy that supports the wealthy, while offering little benefit to working class families in America.

The Boston Beer Company has not yet commented on the controversy.

I will never drink Sam Adam’s beer again! https://t.co/UCywb9I7xE

— Joseph A. Curtatone (@JoeCurtatone) August 12, 2018

We need to hold these complicit profiteers of Trump’s white nationalist agenda accountable ! https://t.co/UCywb9I7xE

— Joseph A. Curtatone (@JoeCurtatone) August 12, 2018

Hey Jim Koch! While you were thanking Trump for your tax break, did you happen to express any concern for the families separated under his cruel and inhumane immigration enforcement policy? @SamuelAdamsBeer https://t.co/UCywb9I7xE

— Joseph A. Curtatone (@JoeCurtatone) August 12, 2018