Now for one of the Captain’s favorite activities… unabashed praise for a Samuel Adams beer.

I said it last year and I say it again this year: winter beers are my favorite. And as of the past few days, they’re here! Why, Mrs. Beer and I met up with Sergeant Stout over the weekend over several Sierra Nevada Celebration Ales and a few New Belgium 1554s. Both grand slams of beer. Nevermind that it was nearly 90 degrees last week—it rained a bit over the weekend, it was Halloween, temperatures dropped and winter beers flowed. Finally. I also had my first egg nog of the season. It was exquisite.

Now… to the beer at hand. When a Sam Adams beer says “lager” on its label you always know it is with some degree of wink-n-smile going on. Thier Black Lager and, say, a Heineken have as much in common as Zima* and Pinot Noir. Sam Adams signature Boston Lager has more complexity and flavor than most purported “ales” can shake a stick at. So yes, technically this is a lager but it’s a BIG lager.

In fact it is a bock style lager. That’s more accurate than “big.” I should have just said that initially but I didn’t and we can never go back. A winter bock. The beer pours out into a nutty brown body with a solid tan head on top. The first aroma you’ll get is a rich malt scent punctuated by spice… is that cinamon and ginger? Why, yes it is (and apparently a wacky rare exotic cinamon at that). The taste of the beer is defined by this complex spiced malt but the hops, in true Sam Adams fashion, are no shrinking violets. No! The hop presence is gently bracing in the sip and pronounced in the finish, taking the sweet edge off the malt and leaving you instead with a cinamon spice, bready taste in the mouth, a bit of pine left over on certain areas of the tongue. It… it tastes like winter. Just go get some. Just go.

*did you hear that Zima has been phased out? Production has halted and by early ‘09 all stocks should be depleted. So if you see some Zima somewhere and want to, for a wistful moment, remember that Zomething Different from the heady Crystal Clear Pepsi and Hypercolor clothing days of the mid 90s, snap up all you can, buddy.