Samuel Adams 1790 Root Beer Brew

Brewed by Boston Beer Company
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Boston, Massachusetts USA

This beer is definitely unique, but overall undrinkable. The aroma is unappealing, but the flavor is just hard to bear.

Pours a standard reddish amber with a frothy thin white head and large visible dark chunks (and I was sediment cautious in my pouring!). The aroma is unlike anything I’ve drank. The standard root/birch beer aroma is accompanied by peppercorns, Winterfresh gum, and licorice with a definite sweetness. Not fantastic, but not auwful. The palate is about average, though perhaps a bit on the chewy side. The flavors are pretty bad though. Sweet malt with sour tanic birch beer like flavors, pepper, licorice, and a bit of mint/wintergreen. Sourness is the first aftertaste lingering into a minty bitterness. This is pretty gross stuff, and only gets worse with every sip.

Bottle shared with Hogtown Harry and Blankboy, Harry’s bottle. Dark orange, frothy white head, small. I’ve never smelled anything like this in my life - very strong, but what? Herbs, basil, vanilla, licorice, homemade rootbeer. I’m not sure I like it, but it is neat. Taste - some of the aspects of the aroma are present, but the root beer is more dominant. This is all mixed with a whisky sweetness - barrel aged root beer! So sticky sweet. Undrinkable really, but you have to appreciate the uniqueness.

12 oz. bottle for Patriot Collection Aroma: Strong scent of sarsparilla, licorice, and vanilla. Appearance: Cloudy dark brown with some floating sediment I was surprised to see. Head was off-white and not very substantial. Flavor: Powerful sarsparilla and licorice which blended into a root beer type flavor I guess. It was odd though. I love root beer. Sarsparilla on the other hand I am not as fond of. They used the black licorice to alter the taste towards root beer but the molasses was not quite sweet enough in the initial taste to get it there. Weird. Can’t say I really enjoyed it but definitely some points for originality and effort. Palate: Finished cloying sarsparilla with some sweet. Overall: This is a tough one to rate. On one hand it was very unique. On the other I really did not like it very much. It was hard to finish the bottle.

Bottle shared with HogTownHarry & tupalev -- courtesy of HogTownHarry. Pours a cloudy reddish-orange with a spare off-white head. Aroma: whoa, that’s...different. Malty with lots of spices, vanilla, some sugar, caramel and...band-aids? It’s kind of Root Beer-ish I guess. I spent a few minutes trying to figure out if I like the aroma or not and I still don’t know. Flavour: Man, there’s no way I could drink a whole bottle of this myself, there’s something in there I don’t care for and it’s got a cloying sweetness to it. Medium bodied. I respect them trying something different but this is not for me. At all.

Pours a cloudy burnt orange very beautiful that leaves a very thin tan lace. The aroms is vanilla, licorise, some orange and a hint of lemon, followed by a distinct hops presence, sassperilla, orange molasses. The taste starts bitter, malty vanilla, orange, very herbal a flavor I assume all the beers in this series will be heavy on. The taste continues with a grapefruit bitterness and finishes sweet on the tongue. I like this beer, but this is a one and done treat for me def not an all night sipper.

Cloudy dark brown pour, with an initially HUGE efferesence, fading to stillness. Aroma of root beer and black licorice. Root beer and licorice in the taste... nothing else really. Hmm... I kind of like root beer and licorice, but I’m not sure it works too well here. Really funky aftertaste as well. I didn’t like this beer from the patriot series. It was a chore to actually finish this one.

Bottle (12oz). Shared with blankboy and tupalev, my bottle. Murky amber-orange, not much head. Smells like the contents of both a root cellar and an old-timey medicine cabinet - wtf - uh, let’s see, gotta pick a number ... 5? Tastes like a really medicinal, alcoholic root beer - a friend used to make it - but Lord I don’t really like it much. Can’t describe the body much, maybe watery, very herbal, oddly alcoholic for 5.5%, decent carbonation. Never want this again. Weird aftertaste.