Samuel Adams 1790 Root Beer Brew

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

Bottle from a bottle shop somewhere in Ohio - thanks to HogTownHarry’s sister for picking it up for me! Shared with jerc. Wow - this is some weird-ass shit! Hazy ruby-orange with a tiny tan head. Aroma is VERY herbal and medicinal - smells like some old timey snake oil remedy or something - with notes of dark sugar and vanilla as well. Flavour of bitter herbs, wintergreen, anise, licorice, vanilla, and some stuff I just don’t recognize. I absolutely love root beer, so I wanted to love this beer, but sadly, I didn’t. Like Jer says, it’s an interesting experiment, and I’m glad to have tried it, but I’m also glad to have shared it, and I’m REALLY glad that my wife liked it so the rest of the bottle didn’t go to waste.

Bottle. Hazy dark amber with a small tan head. Powerful pungent aroma, leafy, lightly vegetal but not in a macro sense, paint thinner (but not really) that is likely what I am perceiving the sassafras as. Very herbal, medicinal flavour that is definitely an acquired taste that I am not willing to delve into more deeply to discern the subtleties of. Average palate. An interesting experiment, but bleeeech! To quote The Producers “Unhappy, unhappy…”

12 oz bottle into a Snifter glass. Pours a murky looking brown with a thicky whitish pale head. The aroma is quite pungent with notes of wood, licorice, and sugars. The taste has almost too much weirdness going on with it with notes of heavy molasses, licorice, and rotting wood. VERY Earthy. I only had a 2 oz serving of this and it was quite hard to choke down. Definitely interesting trying an alcoholic root beer, but I don’t think I’d ever drink it again.

The body is dark amber at the wider part of the glass. There is a bit of gold where the glass is more narrow. The head is light yellowish and very thick. The aroma is anise with some burning green wood. There is also some pears. The taste is fairly strong anise with some rich apple cobbler. This is fruity and slightly bitter at the same time. As yoiu drink more you get some cough syrup and bad orange candy. The body is over carbonated. Interesting try, but this is not good. Drain pour.

An idea that looks better on paper than in the bottle. Pours dark orange / brown - quite hazy with a light tan head. Aroma has lots of sasaphras as well as cinnamon and vanilla - reminds me a lot of sasaphras tea. Then things go downhill with the taste. There is the sasaphras from the aroma, but it is joined with cream, wood, an odd funk, and tobacco-esqe tastes. I give a tip of the hat for effort here, but it just doesn’t pan out in the end.

Minimal head over a dark amber body. Aromas of licorice and wintergreen are easy to pick up, but sassafras is in the background somewhere... Flavor is... well, not my thing. Really antiseptic flavoring burries anything resembling beer, root beer or even anything I would want to finish... It all ended well as it made its way to the drain.

I had so many sarcastically witty things to say about this sh.. er stuff but now do not want to waste the time. Aroma mild version of taste which is Black licorice/nytqil with notes of anise. Foul crap. Makes me want to suck a silver bullet to cleanse my violated taste buds. History my ass! If this is what many of our forefathers drank I can understand why they were so cranky and wore powdered wigs and what not...

Pours ruby-mahagony with an edgy off-white head. Aroma is rooty caramel and honey, malt (biscuit) nose. Smells like root beer. Tastes like a creamy and slightly alcoholic root beer with some sour and bitter notes. Light bodied and creamy palate.