samuel adams black lager
November 16th, 2006 by don
I bought the Samuel Adams Winter Classics sampler pack. Two bottles each of six varieties of Sammies for 12 bucks. But they’ve cheated a little by including a couple beers that aren’t necessarily winter beers, or even seasonal beers: their Black Lager and their orignal Boston Lager. So since I’m not feeling in the holiday mood yet, I decided to start with those and get them out of the way before moving on to the real seasonal stuff.
When I tasted Sam’s Black Lager, the first word that popped into my head was “roasty”. It’s a dry tasting beer; very malty but not sweet at all, but also not terribly bitter either. It sort of reminded me of a porter, but not as heavy. According to the label, it’s made with roasted caramel and chocolate malts and is “lightly hopped” with Noble hops.
As the name implies, this is a very dark beer. It is in fact, nearly black. Here’s a picture of it in my pint glass. It’s like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.
I should point out that many people mistakenly think that ales are dark in color and lagers are light. This is not correct. the color of the beer depends on the type of barley malt used and the extent to which it is roasted. The yeast used is what determines whether it is a lager or an ale. Lagers are brewed with bottom-fermenting yeasts whereas ales are brewed with top-fermenting yeasts.
I love just about any dark beer. Is the Sam Adams available in a regular six-pack or can you just find it in these variety packs?
I believe you can get it in a six-pack, although I don’t know how easy it is to find.
btw - bonus points for the first person who points out the movie quote in this post.
Oh, oh, oh, I know. But I won’t ruin it for everyone else. We did just recently rent the DVD, and I thought Don should do a movie quotes thingy on it.
[…] As I said before, when I bought the Sam Adams Winter Classics mix pack I was disappointed to find that it contained two bottles of Boston Lager. “That’s just regular old Sam Adams” I said to myself. Well, I didn’t actually say it, I just thought it. Sure, they could say you can enjoy it year-round, but that doesn’t really make it a winter classic now, does it? But being the intrepid beerdrinker that I am, I said to myself “you can’t let this stop you; you must deal with this and forge ahead”. […]
I was thinking YOU deserved bonus points for the reference to This Is Spinal Tap. Do I get a free beer?
I bought a Sam Adams mix pack yesterday. 2 each of Brown Ale, Black, and Hefeweizen. The Hefeweizen was nothing to get too excited about, but the Black was really good– you could really taste the chocolate. The Brown Ale will be dessert this evening.