Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
Sam Adams was the epitome of class growing up. For my parents and my friends’ parents in Rhode Island, the dividing line between a cookout and a cookout where folks had money was whether there were Sam longnecks in the cooler.
“A brewer and a patriot,” they’d scoff before prying off the cap and lamenting whatever awful thing had happened to the Red Sox that year. But deep down, they were impressed. Heineken levels of impressed.
The folks at Sam Adams have been kind to Boston and welcoming to emerging brewers, but they’ve largely become a relic as the country’s beer scene exploded. Boston Lager is up there with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale when it comes to microbrews-turned-standard-bearers. Even so, the company’s portfolio is generally something I’ll pass up if more interesting local beers are available.
In fantasy baseball terms, they’re the steady veteran who hits .260 and gives you 20 home runs each year; completely reasonable but unable to stack up to an unproven young prospect with All-Star potential. In beer terms, well…
I typically think of Sam Adams as the kind of beer you turn to at a generic spot with no local buy-in whatsoever. More often than not, it’s a nondescript airport lounge. The beers are overpriced and there are only six on tap. And if you’re not interested in Miller Lite or Stella Artois or, if they’re fancy, Guinness then Sam Adams is the best you’re going to do.
That’s the brewery’s sweet spot; a realm where they remain the innovative young upstart despite evolving into a macrobrew over the past three decades. Sam Adams has been aggressive to count a new generation of drinkers who’ve been inundated with choices in hopes of fixing that image. That’s meant entirely too many television ads, sure, but also an evolving line of new and old beers aimed at casting the widest possible net of beer lovers.
Let’s see how their fall beers shake out.
Jack-O: B-
Pumpkin beers are amazing in theory but generally bewildering in execution. No one seems to know what the right balance of pie and straight-up pumpkin flavors are. There’s always promises of cinnamon and nutmeg and general pie tastiness but those are always threatened to be washed away by heavy beer undertones and bitterness. No one’s really quite sure what the balance between sweet and gourd should be; there’s no tried-and-true standard.
Jack-O kinda gets there. It smells more pumpkin than pie, but there’s a sweetness that levels it off. There’s an effort to stuff some pie crust elements in here as well — a little lemon, a little bready graham cracker taste now and again — but they don’t really push through.
This beer gets old about halfway through. Too sweet. Not enough carbonation. Not enough cinnamon or nutmeg to make it interesting. It’s just … sweet. And that’s boring.
Oktoberfest: B-
The beer itself is a solid Oktoberfest — lighter than the German standards but plenty malty to scratch that itch. There’s more hops here than you might expect from a marzen; not quite bitter, but enough to remind you hey guy, this kid’s from New England. It’s a little tougher to drink than the traditional styles it’s emulating, but it’s not bad.
The main selling point of these marzens is that they leave you wanting more. I’m kinda good after this first one. It’s a well made beer, it’s just not a very interesting one.
Fest Bier: C+
It’s fine, but I just had a great Festbier at Tyranena up here in Wisconsin and this falls short. It feels like the Great Value version of a better beer. It’s a little sour and hollow and generally a little unfulfilling. Bummer.
Boston Lager: B
There’s a reason it’s lasted so long, both in the national beer scene and in the basement of grown adults who preferred plastic bottles of scotch to glass bottles of anything. It’s a flavorful, unique lager. The misplaced hops of the last two beers don’t play a role here; it’s not a perfect beer, but it’s a warm, familiar feeling for something you can get at any gas station in the country (provided you’re in a gas station beer state).
It’s kind of a bummer this is my favorite beer in the pack, but it makes sense. It’s been around this long because it’s good. It’s a sigil in what was once a lost world of craft beer. It feels more authentic than the German beers Sam Adams is trying to replicate.
So we end on a high note. Relatively. Sam Adams isn’t the kind of beer I’d seek out, but if it’s on a six-handled tap on $16 beer night at the Detroit airport, I might give it a spin.
