OK beer readers… now to review a brau from one of the finest breweries in America at its… well, not its finest hour, in my humble opinion, but that’s hardly a pan. Look, as you must have realized by now, we in the Fleet love Sam Adams. The beers they release generally rock. They just rock. And these guys have more styles than an Omaha salon has styles. My god, I’m an awful person.

Anyway, let’s talk about this Winter Lager…

I was… just not wowed by this beer. It was less hoppy than I expect from Samuel Adams and lacked a complexity to the malt or spiciness to compensate for it. Overall, there was nothing “winter” about this otherwise very good lager. It was, to me, more reminiscent of a decent bitters or other lower-hopped ale than a seasonal lager.

Nice color, nice aroma, nice taste, crisp finish but… nothing craaaaaaazy. Nothing wacky. No real winter wonderland. So look… damn good beer, OK? Good beer. Just nothing special, really. I hate (HATE) to say anything bad about the brewery that helped save America from rice-malt crapbrau, but… I’d go with a Sam Adams Cranberry Lambic (or Cherry Wheat or Black Lager or Old Fezzewig or etc) for a real wintery, holiday-y beer. There I… I said it.