Samuel Adams 1790 Root Beer Brew

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

Putrid beer. Aroma was pleasant. It smelled like a bitter root beer with some anise. Too bad the flavor was terrible. Like a licorice beer. Why? It would have been great without it!

Bottled. Does not taste like root beer at all. The licorice flavor is overwhelming. Much to sweet.

Bottle. Pours to a hazy red body under a small tan head. Very appealing, "authentic" aroma. Sassafras, wintergreen, caramelzed sugar. The flavor picks up licorice and a version of the sassafras with more spice and woody bark. To balance those old-school flavors there’s vanilla and pleasant caramel. Medium mouthfeel leaving a sticky residue. Refreshingly different!

this is one for the A&W fan. poured a reddish amber that was nice and hazy and produced a medium to light head. aroma was abundant spice and vanilla. felt like i was sipping an alcoholic roots beer... now i need a corndog.

2006 bottle shared with OldGrowth on 7/6/06.
Light olive-brown, with a slight hint of burnished copper edging up from the darker tinted browns. Off-white head is actually well-retained here. It eventually fades to cover, but in doing so, leaves plenty of lacing and remains at cover until the end. Very strong retention, especially taking in to account the fact that these spices usually kill head retention. True to its word, there is sediment on the bottom.
Strong black licorice in the nose is immediately noted. Dry, very dry, with a peppery feel and on its tail is a quick shot of wintergreen that shoots up the nose. Some light honeyish-like sugars attempt to resolve this heavy spiciness, but it’s immensely dry and certainly not subtle. Still, there is some light chocolate and brown bread dough noted on the edges.
Quite refreshing though, as it is extremely dry and the notes are interesting and real.The balance seems to go downhill in the flavor, the spices lending a near astringency on the end that confounds the palate. Quite attenuated, not enough malt comes to the rescue. Granted I dont believe this to be an attempt at a sweet/chewy beer, but a balance still much be achieved somewhow. Almost pastey or chalky, but dry and papery as well at points. Heavy black licorice and wintergreen with just faint traces of vanilla on the end. Mouthfeel is a bit loose, but the carbonation is natural. Drinkable, but ultimately, overdone on the spices.
As I was just reading in "Farmhouse Ales", most saison brewers believe that the spices should never be so prominent as to be able to be picked out individually, and I agree. I think it holds true to any beer brewed with a melange of spices.

Bottle pours amber-approaching-brown, soft hazed with a quick, off-white head. Strong anise presence with notes of licorice and tea. Some resemblance to root beer. Sharp mouthfeel with tongue-numbing spiciness and a powerful herbal/mint/anise character that approaches medicinality. Confusing. Got low marks from my group, and some poured it.

<font size=-4>Friends arrived at a party of ours with the Patriot 4-pack.<font size=-1>

Pours to a hazy burnt umber body with a fully disapating head. The aroma is very strong in sassafras wood and fennel seed. Wintergreen Lions mints. Doesn’t smell bad, simply strange. Perhaps some garden herbs like tarragon and rosemary. The flavor is very mentholic, honey is apparent for less than a second in the middle of the flavor, sassafras root and brown sugar, light vanilla, tarragon and rosemary. Very strange. Hard palate. Lingering dry woodyness. Bonus points overall for bringing back a historic and long forgotten about style. Should have left it burried, however. Drain pour.

Mint and anise aroma-anise is prominent in flavor along with seems like tarragon. I’d give it higher marks but I didn’t care for the out of balance licorice and the odd menthol aftertaste. Thought somebody dropped a Kool in my beer, the hoser...