Devastatingly powerful, extremely complex triple bock to warm your spirits on a cold wintry night. In clear faded blue 8.4-ounce bottle with eye-grabbing 17% alcohol content, this creamy mahogany beauty opens with syrupy cherry-chocolate mouthfeel, sticky licorice fluctuation, and burnt caramel reticence rounded out by sugary medicinal tempest that’ll overpower novices post-haste. Slow sipping treat every bit as strong as indicated. Besides impairing eyesight, probably cures small aches and pains. Recommended over prescribed tranquilizers.
All posts by John Fortunato
SAMUEL ADAMS SUMMERFEST ALE
On tap, quick berry fruitiness retains citrus-hopped fizz and ripe grapefruit-tangerine-orange blossom sweetness. Sunset orange turbidity matches thick yeast-malt concentration.
SAMUEL ADAMS SUMMER ALE
Clean tasting moderate-bodied pale-hazed American wheat ale brewed with lemon and African melegueta pepper conveys fizzy hop-tingled citric-herbal-floral piquancy redolent of Belgian White Ale. Coriander, agave, spearmint, and peppercorn hints shelter sour lemon zest as wee apricot-orange peel-cherry tang gently caresses hindmost violet-jasmine trace. Tea-like hint sways mineral-grained bread-y malt base. Try it with sherbet for true refreshment.
SAMUEL ADAMS SPRING ALE
Rich golden dry-hopped ‘Kolsch’-style ale finds strong wheat fiber, tart green apple sourness, and unripe apricot-lemon twang usurped by peculiar rustic barley persistence underscored by faint chocolate sulk. Sticky fruit tang not as prevalent as Spring class may suggest.
SAMUEL ADAMS SCOTCH ALE
Roasted barley tag, sweet whiskey snag, and smoked peat malt slag make this Scotch ale likable. Band-Aid mouthfeel is an acquired taste and after a few sips the dissipating lemon peel-embittered finish becomes bland, inefficient.
(SAMUEL ADAMS) PATRIOT COLLECTION- TRADITIONAL GINGER HONEY
Slightly gold-hazed eccentricity integrates wildflower honey sweetness with profound ginger spicing, fluctuant chamomile restraint, and latent lemon peel bittering, retaining floral finish as well as hard-candied lemondrop appeal.
(SAMUEL ADAMS) PATRIOT COLLECTION- 1790 ROOT BEER BREW
Advertised ‘herbs, spices, vanilla, honey, and molasses’ only play dinky role in precariously overdone 5.5% alcohol-laced root beer. Instead, resounding black licorice foundation overwhelms expectant sarsaparilla twang, maple snip, and peppery wintergreen reminder. Good for a sugar rush and better than sticky Schnapps.
(SAMUEL ADAMS) PATRIOT COLLECTION- JAMES MADISON DARK WHEAT
Plain, inexpressive, unfiltered mahogany-hued ale can’t find the right groove. Subtle rye-cocoa illusions get buried beneath prickly citric hops and blanched barley roast. Earthen red-white oak finish recedes to bland nuttiness, deadening ginger, allspice, and clove tingle.
(SAMUEL ADAMS) PATRIOT COLLECTION- GEORGE WASHINGTON PORTER
Indistinct dry-bodied porter brings raw molasses bittering to sweet licorice setting, finishing closer to a black ale with its ashy mocha malting and dirty earthiness. Arid hop char brackets dark fruited smidgen and gingerbread remnant, but smoked hickory illusion gets lost behind rampant anise stickiness.
SAMUEL ADAMS PALE ALE
Dried lemon vapidity, tinny hop tepidity, and warbled phenol flow disrupt cereal-grained toasting. Wafts of barnyard hay produce alfalfa, maize, and wild oat illusions.
SAMUEL ADAMS OLD FEZZIWIG ALE
Brewed with cinnamon, ginger, and orange, this well-seasoned ale scores points for brevity and originality. Spice-fueled adjuncts arouse lactic chocolate malts and impending plum-fig-cherry souring, but tangy orange flavor gets lost in wintry barleywine-sherry mix. Peculiar for starters, but top notch for seasoned pros.
SAMUEL ADAMS OCTOBERFEST
Rustic Bavarian-styled four-malt lager ‘to celebrate autumn’ draws strength from sweet ‘n sour malt variance, dried fruit binge, toasted nut singe, and delicate maple tinge. Caramel-burnt butterscotch sweetness consumes spice-hopped finish.