Who: Co-founders of Harpoon Brewery and the current CEO (Rich) and president (Dan).

House: Eliot (Rich) and Winthrop (Dan)

Spotlight: Beer or banking? Faced with this question, many bright young Harvard M.B.A.s may have chosen the lucrative salary of the latter, and saved the former for what precious little down time they had. But Doyle and Kenary, dissatisfied with American beer as well as their jobs at Lehman Brothers and First National Bank, decided the best solution to both problems was, obviously, to start their own brewery. They had seen and partook of the beer culture in Europe, where breweries were deeply rooted in their local communities, and they wanted to create something similar for New England. Harpoon’s beginnings were humble: Doyle wrote the proposal for a class his second year of Harvard Business School, and the first batch of beer was mixed in a bathtub. The founders, joined by Doyle’s classmate George Ligetti (M.B.A. ’86), worked 60 hour weeks, laboring over the bottling line alongside their workers. The results paid off: serious beer-drinkers flocked to Harpoon’s delicious, fresh ale that hit the shelves within days and weeks of bottling—unlike bland, pasteurized, months-old Budweiser.

Liquid Gold: In 2005, Harpoon brewed 90,000 bottles of beer, compared to the 1,319 barrels they started with in 1987. They opened a second brewery in Windsor, Vermont, in 2000, making their production second only to Anheuser-Busch in New England. But despite comfortable profits, Harpoon counters the notion that a company must grow: “The object of making a local beer is to have a fresh, distinctive beer. We're going to keep it in New England, mostly around Boston and the Cape,” Doyle told the Boston Business Journal.

Turf wars: When Harpoon first got going, Boston almost didn’t seem to be big enough for two Harvard M.B.A.-run breweries that both made quality craft beers and emphasized their local origins. Harpoon and archrival Sam Adams, founded by C. James Koch (grad of the College, Business School and Law School), tussled over bids for concessions at Harvard Commencements and reunions, with Harpoon winning some years and Sam Adams others (this year it was Magic Hat and Amstel Light). Harpoon had the plus of actually brewing and bottling in a former shipyard in Boston Harbor; they pointed out that Sam Adams’s patriotic image was just that—the beer actually came from breweries in Ohio, Pittsburgh, and New York.

An official brew: Harvard College is getting a pub—and Harpoon’s supplying the drink, with a new ale called “1636.” Those lucky undergrads.

Odd jobs: Not only does he drink and brew beer, Doyle also served alcohol briefly as a bartender—in New Zealand.

Brevitas: “We like beer.” – Kenary, to the Boston Business Journal.