Samuel Adams 1790 Root Beer Brew

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

I was very excited to try this beer. It poured clear with a brass color. The aroma is that of a root beer flavor from a dum dum sucker. The taste was not what I expected. An overwhelming flavor of sassafras mixed with NyQuil shocked my senses. For those not familiar with sassafras - The smell of sassafras oil is said to make an excellent repellent for mosquitoes and other insects. It also worked well to repell me. As a child I was served Sassafras tea as medicine when I was ill. This beer actually triggered a gag reflex for me twice! Ugh! I couldn’t finish this 100% bona fide drain pour. Very disapointing - however, I’m still glad for the experience and chance to taste that recipe!

Woah. This could only come from New England, though I must say that if it weren’t for all the historical mumbo jumbo on the box one could imagine it brewed in a Maine prison out of Robotussin and shoe polish. A sappy, creamy and diet root beer nose that give ways to something more menthol and medicinal. If this doesn’t make it as beer, maybe police men could rub it under thier nose when they come on a perticularly grusome crime scene. It’s the color of dirty work pants, with a pretty white head that runs for its life as quick as it possibly can. Really oily and chewy and sticky and mouthfeel and yes a little shewy and even at moments a little soapy. There are plenty of less than pleasent things you might say about this beer -- but as someone who has tried to make due with limited resources my entire life, I can not help to salute the intention and commend the overall package. Moreover I like that this beer is bitter but not in the hoppy way you are used to -- more like chewing bark. And it numbs your mouth out too. A beer for you to experience for yourself-- though admitedly not more than a couple of times.

12 oz bottle: clear copper garnet, thin creamy ring of off white cream. Absolutely wicked sassafras aroma, smoothed out slightly by the vanilla bean sweetness, but another lashing by some medicinal and herbal bitterness takes this one away from the nose in a jerking manner…the aroma was interesting and slightly inviting, but the flavour is horrendous! Basically impossible to palate: fizzy, cloying sweetness with strong black licorice and spicy mint. Undrinkable.

Bottle. Deep sassafras root aroma - licorice comes out as it warms - just like old fashioned sassafras tea (this brings back childhood memories of growing up in the midwest - if you’re not familiar with sassafras tea, it’ll just smell like flat root beer or medicine if you’re Australian). Cloudy orange brown color with small head. Sweet earthy sassafras root flavor with hint of wintergreen coming out - wood smoke and bitterness come out in the end. For most people, this will just taste like crappy root beer to them and that will be the end of it. But I think this is an absolutely brilliant beer especially given the historical significance. The natural sassafras and wintergreen flavor are absolutely mind-blowing - as I’ve had both fresh sassafras and wintergreen teas - you get both these flavors with this and they are definitely not artificial. This really isn’t going to fit into most peoples idea of beer, but as a midwestern boy, it’s like a drink of home.

There is an aroma of licorice, sassafras, and vanilla. The color is copperish with a light tan head. A rootbeer flavor dominates and has a sweet finish.

12 oz bottle, snifter. A frothy light tan head slowly recedes over burnt amber hued body. The nose is extraordinarily powerful with the licorice barely edging out the sassafras and wintergreen. The sweet smell of vanilla lurks closely behind. No mistaking it though, this beer smells like one big-ass root beer. Hints of buttery caramel are exposed with a little warmth. Caramel and wintergreen are strong up front along with licorice. The licorice flavor gains some sour qualities at mid-palate. The finish is long and wet with a strong sassafras sensation as well as vanilla. Slick and fizzy, it drinks pretty much like a soda. Could I drink more than one of these at a time? No way. But I couldn’t do that with Anchor OSA either, and I really love that beer. No reason to knock it for that. It’s damned odd and more a soda than a beer, but what the heck, I enjoyed drinking it. Oh, and I LOVE licorice.

Pours turbid deep coppery orange with minimal head. Big root beer, sassafras, and sarsaparilla aroma. The flavor is heavily root beery at first, with a sweet, medium palate. As it warms, the flavor falls off a bit and gets a bit odd as the wintergreen, vanilla, and molasses kick in. All things considered, when you cut through all the BS, this one isn’t bad at all. Not soon to become a regular in my beer fridge, but not as bad as some make it out to be.

Bottle - Pours reddish amber in color with very thin white head and some carbonation present. Aroma is intense licorice, minty wintergreen, sassafras, anise, spicy clove and an overall medicinal smell. Palate is somewhat thin and watery. Upfront taste is sweet with an overpowering anise flavor. Follow through is sour and medicinal with mint really coming out. Aftertaste is heavy black licorice and more sour. Overall this is unlike any beer I’ve ever had. There’s definitely a lot going on with this beer and I’m not sure it all works together. I have to agree with another reviewer who said that they probably stopped making this one for a reason.