I believe Sam Adams has been the most consistently meaningful beer marketer that I have come across. Last year I wrote about its launch of specially designed beer glasses that—at least in this beer drinker’s opinion—really do make the amber ale taste even better. Today I want to share some things I’ve learned about the company’s dedication to encouraging home- and craft-brew competitors.

As a subscriber to the Sam Adams email newsletter, I’ve had a chance to learn about its annual LongShot challenge among home brewers. It is an annual competition with judging events around the country that gives people the chance to have their beer mass produced in a special promotional six-pack. What I love about this contest is that it is much more than simply a “name our next flavor” or “make your own commercial” marketing promotion, which many brands have done with little personal engagement or connection to the product itself. Instead, this challenges the most dedicated brewers against each other and offers up the special reward of possibly seeing their years of investment pay off in peer admiration and distribution across the country.

My only disappointment is that Sam Adams doesn’t make the LongShot contest a bigger deal. After looking for the SKU in stores for years, I only just found it last weekend in a dusty corner of a local liquor store. There are actually three different winners in each six-pack: Cranberry Wit, Traditional Bock, and Double IPA (my favorite of the three with tons of citrus from the seven different types of hops). The Cranberry Wit was actually created by a Sam Adams employee, Carissa Sweigart. Giving employees the chance to participate is a pretty neat cultural build for the company. In total there were a little more than 1,300 entries from about 1,000 home brewers.

Last week I found another great story of Sam Adams support for small brewers. In a video at Fast Company I found an interview of Sam Adams founder Jim Koch. He tells the story of a recent national hops shortage, and how he ended up selling excess hops to competitive craft brewers who did not have access to this key ingredient. Koch put the reason simply: “They are my colleagues.”

The question is: Why would a mass marketer such as Sam Adams do small things like this that only touch a handful of their consumers? Where’s the scale, right? Well some might argue that these brilliant marketers realize that their positioning in the market as a legitimate microbrewer means that they must stay close to their roots and do things that the big players find too small. True, but I think Koch and his team are making these “small” efforts first and foremost because they want to. After all, Koch first brewed Sam Adams in his kitchen sink, and today they continue to behave like a bunch of passionate believers who want to make great-tasting beer. That’s just the easiest way to do the right thing for the business.

By sticking to their brand purpose and retaining a personal, hands-on engagement in the product, the marketing stuff comes naturally, and Sam Adams continues to be one of the best big brands in beer. Actually, with Anheuser-Busch’s takeover by foreign-based InBev, Sam Adams is now the largest American-owned brewery. I can think of no better beer representative for our country, and no better representative of where I hope our country’s brand marketing is heading next.