Monthly Archives: July 2009

Review of Sam Adam’s Longshot “Traditional Bock”

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Today’s selection is another one from the longshot six pack I picked up at Van’s the other day. This one the traditional bock, and can be expected to be a dark, strong, malty lager. This is my first beer since contracting the flu, and is my test vehicle before heading out to the World of Beer Festival in Milwaukee tomorrow. I plan to do a quick blog post on how that went and some ups and downs of that fest.

Off the pour this looks like a wonderful bock, the color is a deep rich reddish amber with nice creamy head. The color is crystal clear from the lagering process and the head already seems to be forming a sticky lacing on my glass. There is a rich sweet malty aroma, that is quite toasty (not to be confused with roasty, like most stouts are). I do get some noticeable alcohol in the aroma as well. This beer is very clean and I get no hop aroma, which is OK for a bock.
The flavor is nice and complex. A nice toasty caramel character hugs your tongue and sticks around for the ride. There some spicy hop flavor and just enough bitterness to balance out the malt and not even really poke it’s head out. If you don’t know what hop bitterness does for balancing sweetness in a beer, you probably will not even know the bitterness is there. The spicy hop flavor comes through right before the middle, just as you start to swallow and fades almost right away as the beer goes down your throat. There is a toasty and bready malt finish that finishes just a touch sweet, but still leaving you wanting to take another drink soon enough.
The mouthfeel is smooth and silky with a nice medium body. Carbonation is good, with just enough effervescence to scrub out the sweetness. This beer would be just awesome with a ribeye or juicy burger off the grill with grilled or sauteed onions.
Overall this is a well above average bock. Many commercial examples just seem to fall a bit too thin, although still good. Most commercial examples of beers are good, it’s just some are much better than others. This one is one of my favorites and I give it an A-. It hits the style quite solidly, yet doesn’t push the envelope so much it brings the beer to a borderline dopplebock. It’s too bad this this a limited edition release, I would buy this one regularly.

-Jason Johnson

Review of Sam Adams Longshot Cranberry Wit

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Today I will be doing the last of the Sam Adams Longshot beers for this years winners. Today’s beer is a Cranberry Wit, which would be the BJCP category for Fruit beers with a base style of Witbier. As you may recall from earlier posts, when evaluating a specialty beer, or a fruit beer, you need to take into consideration the base style for the beer. You could have an apricot pale ale, or a cherry wheat and either one should show some of the fruit character plus the attributes of the pale ale style beer, or the weizen or wheat beer style. So since the base beer for this one is a witbier, we will keep an eye out for some of the major attributes. There should be a sweet and spicy aroma from the wheat malt, some detectable spice and citrus notes from the use of coriander. The flavor should be a bit sweet and fruity, and if we are lucky just a touch tart (but that part is not required, I just prefer it). There should also be some detectable spice as well in the flavor, and all this should also have at least a low level detectable amount of cranberry as well. So, let’s get started.

The beer pours a hazy orangish color with some nice dense foam for the head. The head also sticks around for a while, and slowly disaptes to the very thin bubbly layer.
The aroma is mostly citrus fruits, possibly from the coriander and wheat aroma combined. There is some very low amount of cranberry aroma, and very very slight spicy aroma, but I suspect that is from the yeast since it does not smell like coriander or pepper. Overall the aroma is fairly unassuming, mostly citrus and sweet malt.
The flavor is quite nice, with some sweetness up front, and the tartness of the cranberries comes through quite a bit here as well. The sweetness and cranberry tartness rides right on through the middle and into the finish. This beer is quite refreshing, and I think Bud Light has a lot to fear from this beer because when it comes to “drinkability” this beer blows Bud Light out of the water. There is a some tang from the wheat malt and hint of coriander and orange zest in this beer as well. Overall this is a fruity, refreshing, easy drinking beer. The mouthfeel is medium/light and the carbonation is a the medium level as well, I would expect the carbonation to be a bit higher.
This one is a tough one for me to grade. From the standpoint of drinkabilty and being quite refreshing, this beer gets an A. From the standpoint of a fruit witbier, I would give it a B. I would like to see a bit more depth to the spice character in this beer, and that is the one area it fell short. The fruit was very nice, and at a complimentary level, not a “hit you in the face” level and I like the complimentary level a lot better because it showcases the beer. However, the beer side is the weakest side of this beer. Still, the beer as a whole gets a solid B and is not a disappointment, just not what I was expecting. This beer is quite good, but not great.
-Jason Johnson

Review of Sam Adams Longshot “Double IPA”

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I purchased a few beers from Van’s Liquor. I picked up more of the New Glarus Imperial Saison which I reviewed earlier in the week, along with a special release from Goose Island, and the Sam Adams Longshot pack containing the winners from their homebrew contest. This pack contained the Traditional Bock, Cranberry Witbier, and the Double IPA. Today I will review the Double IPA also known as an Imperial IPA. In short, in a double IPA you can expect a big hop aroma, a lot of hop flavor and assertive bitterness. You should also see some balance between the malt and hops, even though the hops take center stage, there should be enough malt to hold up to the hops, but should not approach the sweet and malty levels of a barleywine. In the end, just take your favorite IPA and multiply it by 2 and you should get the idea of what to expect.
This double IPA was the winner of a Sam Adams homebrew contest, so if you really like this beer, it is proof that a person can make beer like this at home, and if it interests you I suggest you head down to Grape Grain and Bean and set yourself up with a homebrew kit ASAP!

The first thing that hits me about this beer is that I can smell flowery hops off the pour and I don’t even have the glass to my nose yet. I poured it on the counter top and the hop aroma was strong enough for me to smell it from 2 feet away! This prompted me to lift the glass to my nose to get a good sniff. The aroma is very nice, mostly of flowery American hops, but there is some underlying citrus as well. It is a very well blended hop profile, with the flowery hops, and the citrus is a nice combination of some grapefruit, lemon, and a small bit of sweet orange and a hint of pine. Aside from the very complex hop aroma, you get a sweet malt aroma as well, mostly caramel and not much else. But this is evidence that there will be enough malt to support the hops in this one.
I almost forgot the appearance in this one, because the aroma stole the show. The beer poured a real nice dense head that lasted for several minutes. The beer is a dark golden amber color with some haze, I doubt this beer was bottle conditioned so I am thinking maybe residue from some dry hopping?
Flavor is where this beer leaves me just a little bit. Don’t get me wrong it is very good, and quite large which is what it should be, but it appears to be a bit out of balance for my taste. The hop flavor is complex and incredible. There is some hints of pine and grapefruit and just a thick juicy hop cone sitting right in your mouth. How great is that? Pretty great I would say. But there is just a little something off in the finish. The bitterness is OK, but it is so tongue coating that it leaves an impression of chalky dryness. The malt is very nice, with a sweet and soft caramel flavor that starts off balancing the hops nicely until the hops just beats the crap out of it. You can obviously taste the alcohol in this beer as well, not only in just the nose, but the flavor as well. I believe this beer weighs in between 9.5% and 10% ABV. This style should be very hop assertive, which it is, but I think that one of the hop choices may not sit so well the beer. It is possible that due to the hop shortage, Sam Adams may have had to substitute one of the original hop choices for one with a slightly higher level of cohumulone, which is what I think is giving the beer that odd chalky dry bitter finish. The mouthfeel of the beer is medium and has no real astringency I can attest to. Carbonation is on point as well.
I don’t want you to get me wrong, this beer is a very good example of an Imperial IPA and I am enjoying it. But when evaluating beer you have to take the good with the bad, and in this case the good outweighs the bad. But you still need to acknowledge all aspects of what you perceive. So in the end, I give this beer a solid B. I have had the original beer that this homebrew was modeled after, which is called Pliney the Elder and is brewed by Russian River Brewing in California, and although it is almost as enjoyable as it’s inspiration, it just falls a touch short. However, I still not regret drinking this one bit.
-Jason Johnson

Review of Sierra Nevada Summerfest Lager

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I am going to start today with a summer lager from Sierra Nevada called Summerfest Lager which purchased at Festival Foods in a six pack. If you are looking to compare this to a style, you can use the BJCP guidelines for the Bohemian Pilsner (AKA Czech Pilsner), the addition of Perle hops sort of puts this out of traditional style, but the category will do for now since Saaz is used in the boil and for finishing hops. So with that all said, lets check this beer out.

The beer pours a brilliantly clear yellow color. If you were to hold this up next to Budweiser you may have a hard time visually telling the difference, for a Bohemian Pilsner this beer’s color is at the mark, albeit the low end of the color scale. In the aroma you have a lot more malt aroma than you would in that Bud, and that’s a good thing, the bad thing is the hop aroma levels of the Saaz is a bit lower than I would expect for this style. The malt aroma is crisp and grainy, while the hop aroma is a bit more floral for me than spicy, as well as being low.
As for the flavor, the hop bitterness is a bit underdone as well as the flavor. The malt flavor is lingering as well. The bitterness is quite a bit lower than what I have had in many other Bohemian Pils, but it is there and it does not linger into the finish. I do like the beer’s finish and it does leave you wanting more, the malt is just slightly sweet and finishes clean. Stylistically the beer misses the mark a bit for a claim as a Bohemian Pils, but it does deliver as a good easy drinking summer beer. I guess it all depends on what the main goal of this beer was, if it was to nail a Bohemian Pilsner style or be a mass market craft beer perfect for summer events. I would put my money on the latter. But this beer still could benefit from a boost in the Saaz hops additions even if it was just a little. O
Overall i would give this beer a C+ for style but a B for good drinking summer lager. I would still take this over a Budweiser, Miller, or Coors any day of the week (or weekend for that matter)

Edit: I just felt I should add that the hops bitterness does increase as the beer warms. This is normal for beers, but if i would have drank this beer a bit warmer, I wouldn’t have dinged it as bad for such a low bitterness level. But as a summer beer chances are you would start this beer off cold anyway.
-Jason