Samuel Adams 1790 Root Beer Brew

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

Sampled from bottle. Pours murky red-brown with quite a bit of sediment and a scattered, sudsy head. Aroma is not beery, but has an interesting boquet of spices: vanilla, anise and ginger. Flavor is interesting, but certainly not good. Not much like root beer and not like beer. More ginger & spices at any rate. Well-carbonated and medium-bodied. I feel sorry for the poor souls who were compelled to drink this style some 200 years ago.

Murky orange/brown, small off white head. Nose of root beer and licorice. Root beer flavors, like a Barq’s, with a licorice twang. Licorice all over the finish.

Brewer Patriot Collection #4 Pours a deep hazy copper with a frothy ivory head. Smells spicy. Ginger and vanilla. Sasparilla. Tastes of sasparilla root, ginger and vanilla. Honey. Mouth is dry with long bitter sasparilla. None of this is pleasant. This is brutal. Out of hundreds of beers reviewed and dozens more sampled, this is one of only two drain pours. The other three beers in this set are pretty good IMO. This one is undrinkable.

Bottle. Poured cloudy brown color with an average frothy off-white head that mostly lasted with fair lacing. Heavy vanilla root beer aroma. Medium body with a sticky texture. Medium sweet root beer flavor with a medium sweet finish of moderate duration. I would not recommend this to a freind.

Here we go again, what were they thinking? From bottle. Pour a carbonated light brown with thin tan head. Nose is root beer with a twist, a twist like that from "The Village", i.e., not good. Black liquorish as well. Flavor is like a root beer candy with a lingering black liquorish finish. Should not be referred to as beer.

Murky honey brown color. Small off white crown, light carbonation. Smells like root beer and licorice with malt in the background. Flavor is definitely not root beer, but more like herbs and spices such as ginger, mint, and oregano. It is pretty earthy, bit it also has a sweetness to it. Almost has tongue-numbing effect after you swallow. Very interesting, but not a beer I would drink regularly. This one is quite memorable though since it’s so different. 12 oz bottle, $2.40 from The Party Source (available only in the special "Brewer Patriot Collection" 4-pack).

Shared with Immy and gputty. Pours an amber brown, with not much of a head. Nose is predominately root beer, with a bit of black licorice underneath. Flavor is just like the nose, root beer and licorice. I’m not a big root beer fan, but if you were, you’d enjoy it.

Only positive thing I can write about this horrid beer was its aroma - much like genuine root beer. But you know - when I want something that tastes like root beer, I’ll get a root beer. A regular root beer is much tastier. I hazard to even call this beer. It’s more like a bad root beer with some alcohol thrown in.