Friends, it’s a happy time when a Sam Adams mix pack comes out. As you all know, darker, winter beers are this Captain’s favorite, but summer/spring beers are wondrous too. The most recent mixed 12er I picked up has 2 of each of the following: Boston Lager, Sam Light, Blackberry Wit (finally!), Hefewiezen, Summer Ale and Pale Ale.

I’ve chosen to review that Pale Ale today because I have about three minutes. And the review will be simple, as this beer is basically exactly what you’d expect from a good American Pale Ale.

It’s hop forward but without any sharpness. There is no specific note of pine, grapefruit, etc—now, at times this sort of “general bitterness” would be less, say, intriguing than I like out of a beer. But if you’re eating a good meal, cooling down after exercise, starting off your morning, etc, sometimes you just want a good, balanced pale ale. Not a Pliny the Elder that you’ll taste for hours. Not a Ruinator that will, well, ruin your taste buds for the rest of the day. You just want a drinkable beer. That’s what this is. It’s a pleasantly bitter, refreshing beer with subtle, bready malt and firm but not overbearing hops. Serve it cold when the weather’s hot and then get me three to five more and a sandwich. Turkey club. Mustard, yeah. But no mayo. That stuff’s wack, man.

Those daring, beautiful people have done it again: Jim Koch and his Samuel Adams crew have made me scream like a little girl. Here’s an article (ahem) lifted from their newsletter. Why gild the lily, I asked myself. Read on. Oh, the beer of it all!

Pushing Beer’s Boundaries

In 1984 Jim Koch first brewed Samuel Adams Boston Lager® thus helping set the stage for American beer drinkers’ broadening interest in high-quality, full flavored brews. Now in 2009 we give you the Samuel Adams Imperial Series. Three distinct brews available in their own 4-packs, the Samuel Adams Imperial Series takes some of your favorite traditional beer styles and kicks them up a notch. Each is brewed with twice the amount of malt found in Samuel Adams Boston Lager. With more robust flavors these brews are intended to be savored and appreciated like you would a fine wine. This new series of beers will be offered year-round and includes Samuel Adams® Imperial White, Samuel Adams® Imperial Stout and Samuel Adams® Double Bock. Read on for a more detailed description of each…

9.2% ABV. Much bigger than your average stout, Samuel Adams Imperial Stout is a colossal beer inspired by centuries-old stouts. These traditional stouts were first brewed by 18th century English brewers for the Russian Imperial Court of Catherine the Great.

The first thing you notice about this beer is its color. It is black as night and almost completely opaque. Next is the cappuccino colored head: the aroma is filled with notes of coffee, smoky chocolate and licorice. And the taste delivers on all of those aromas, you can pick out each one.

Samuel Adams Imperial Stout was brewed with seven different varieties of malted barley, including Roasted Barley, Special B and smoked malt, each delivering its own unique flavor to the beer. But this beer is not a “malt bomb”. It is balanced by 50 BUs of East Kent Goldings hops that have a clean earthy aroma and pleasant bitterness. This is a colossal beer that should be savored and enjoyed.

10.3% ABV. Samuel Adams Imperial White expands the boundaries of the witbier style. While showcasing the traditional witbier aromas and hazy appearance, it delivers a bigger mouthfeel and body.

This beer has a lot going on. Brewed with 50% malted wheat and two-row Harrington and Metcalfe malted barley, Imperial White also includes a number of brewing spices, highlighted by the orange peel and coriander. The rest of the flavors come from the yeast and the alcohol. As this beer warms and opens up, you start to get complex flavors of dry fruits, exotic spices, and floral blossoms. These are flavors typically associated with wine and spirits, but they are showcased in Samuel Adams Imperial White as a bouquet of flavors. We knew we were going to enjoy watching this beer develop and we are thrilled with the result.

9.5% ABV. Over the past 20 years, Samuel Adams Double Bock has become one of the Samuel Adams Brewery’s most acclaimed beers. An enormous amount of two-row Harrington Metcalfe and Caramel 60 malts, half a pound per bottle, is used to brew this intense, rich lager. This beer is close to the idea of beer as “liquid bread.”

Samuel Adams Double Bock, as with all of the beers in the Imperial Series, is brewed using only first wort (wort that has not been sparged in the lauter tun) to obtain a liquid that has a very high sugar content, or gravity. This high gravity allows for a fuller body and higher alcohol content in the final beer. We age this beer for over 4 weeks to allow all of those intense flavors to develop and mature. For it’s inclusion in the Imperial Series, we’ve amped up the recipe for Samuel Adams Double Bock a little to reach 9.5% ABV, but you still get those complex rich flavors that define the style.

Its deep mahogany color, velvet smooth, rich yet slightly citrusy flavor and mouthfeel is a testament to the beer’s balance. In the past, Samuel Adams Double Bock has been available only for a short six-week period. The brewers have decided to make it available year-round with the other Big Beers in the Samuel Adams Imperial Series.

Take it away, Sam Adams On Tap Newsletter…

2008 Beer Lover’s Choice Winner – Available Now!

With 24 hour news coverage can anyone forget that 2008 was an election year?! We’re glad that over several months last summer & fall, tens of thousands of you got out the vote and participated in the 4th Annual Samuel Adams Beer Lover’s Choice program helping us choose the next Samuel Adams style. The victorious brew was Samuel Adams^® Blackberry Witbier, a traditional witbier with orange peel and coriander, complemented by the subtle sweetness of Marion blackberries. Grown on a family farm in the shadow of Mt. Hood, Oregon, our Marion blackberries add a distinct blackberry aroma that blends with the wheat malt for a smooth finish that is both subtly sweet and crisp.

Samuel Adams Blackberry Witbier is available all year round in its own 6-pack, in the Samuel Adams^® Brewmaster’s Variety 6-pack and it will be joining the Samuel Adams^® Summer Styles pack this summer.

And… yet another deep doff of the cap. What… a… beer. I finally spotted a Sam Adams Holiday Pack the other day and leapt onto it, shattering every bottle and injuring a small Navajo boy. I wept at the lost beer for several hours and then, assured the young lad was resting soundly, went out for another Holiday Pack. And this baby packs a punch. Of great beer. We’re talking 2 Boston Lagers, 2 Winter Ales (oh man), 2 Cranberry Lambics (aw yeah), 2 Old Fezziwig Ales (ooh spelling… I really should check that…), 2 Holiday Porters (hell yeah) and 2 of these babies. Or, in latin effin beerum bliss, man. Um.

Where to begin? With the pour? Good thinking. I used a room temperature spherical glass, of course. The beer is a deep, rich mahogany brown. The head is a rich tan color and pour carefully: if you do, you have a thick foam friend for most of the brau!* If you don’t… I hope you have some time on your hands to let it dissipate. Maybe try to get some weeding done? ANYWAY! The aroma of this lovely stout is rich bread—almost sweet enough to have a coffee cake scent—and hints of hops and spice.

Ah and then you drink it. Happy day. Rich, thick and smooth (just like so many corpulent, balding hedge fund managers). The thick, cream body is provided by the use of unmalted barley in the brewing process. This is barley that has not been allowed to germinate and convert its starches to fermentable sugars, for those of you who didn’t know (you should likely caaaaaaalllll someone. Maybe your local homebrew store). The unmalted barley contributes a thickness to the beer because its starches don’t break down into alcohol and CO2. We lazy homebrewers use dry malt extract for the same effect.

Moving along—the good brewers at Samuel Adams saw fit to use chocolate and caramel malts. The beer is a mouth-party** of malt: toasted bread, coffee, dark chocolate, amazing. A generous addition of English hops balance but do not interfere with the malt backbone. The beer has just enough spice to keep it deftly balanced but still big. And beautiful. 

* from the German for “barley sac”

** just go with it…

That’s right! Captain and Mrs. Beer’s Maple Porter received a score of “very good” from the professional panel of tasters from the Sam Adams Longshot homebrew contest! Not only that but as you’ll see below, one of our judges indicated they would “pay money for this beer” which is rockin! I think. Look I’m struggling with humility here.  I  swear I’m awesome trying. Anyway…

Oh, happy day! Look, some people have been brewing for decades. Some people have more time and capital than certain young men. But dammit, I gotts me some moxy! Or maple. It was maple. See here:

Now I’m not saying I’m King Brewhammer (though if there’s any justice in this world some day I will be, and you will KNEEL, dammit!), but I do direct your attention to the bottom grid. Notice any marks? No… you don’t. Because THAT is where the tasters noted flaws. So… maybe we didn’t win uber alles but… flawless? Why thank you, Mr. Koch! Anyway, they sent a letter, our detailed score sheet and a free t-shirt! The t-shirt could easily house four of me and at first I was all: “What gives!?” But then I remembered that this is A) A hombrew thing and B) in America. So the Mrs. is going to try to do some magic to make it fit, as it would be awesome to have a lovely Longshot 2008 shirt to strut around. Booya.

Yet another solemn nod to The Boston Beer Company and another satisfied palate over here. As we strolled the awful cavernous aisles of a wholesaler, seeking free samples and bulk-size crackers, there like a beacon of light shown a beer brewed near Beacon Hill where once I made a bacon sandwich and beckoned friends with brew to draw near. Or something. What I mean is I got this mixed case of Sam Adams and aw damn, happy times. Sam Lager, Black Lager, Scotch Ale and Brown Ale, all in one place! And this Brown Ale is a fine beer, man. For serious.

A lovely brown (ey!) color, a nice tan-white head and an aroma that lets you know you’re in a good place. The bouquet is malt and bready with a hint of hop and a bit of sweet caramel. The taste? RICH malty goodness with a subtle but complex play of nutiness and caramel. The hops balance out the rich malt flavors with a nice mix of bitterness and a slight tangy, almost citrus touch. If I had to use a few words to describe the beer, rich and subtle would surely be in there. Oh ale, you rocked my socks! Or wait… that was the rock tumbler. Why the fu.ck are my socks in the rock tumbler!? You ruined my socks AND my amethyst! Dammit! Now what am I going to wear and what am I going to bring to the Gem Gala?

Y es, that’s right: I am going to the Gem Gala. And I was going to have some prize-worthy, low-occlusion amethyst, but I guess now I’ll bring Lapis lazuli and boring old obsidian. Just like last year.