Samuel Adams Boston Lager

Brewed by Boston Beer Company
Style: Premium Lager
Boston, Massachusetts USA

Bottle. Red-gold color, with nice lacing, actually a very attractive-looking beer. Nose is very clean, not much going on here apart from some maltiness. Palate is refreshing and clean, with plenty of hallertau in the mix. Simple, clean, well done, but not anything special.

Pours clear amber, with a medium white head, fine long lasting lacing. Smells of apple, caramel, and grass. Fairly thin, velvety and crisp body. Flavor of caramel, bread, apple, with a nice full, earthy grass finish. Mild bitter, complex aftertaste.

I can’t believe that I haven’t rated this yet. Pours a clear amber color with a small white head. Faintly sweet, malty aroma. Those sweet malts give way to a sharp bitterness on the finish. Excactly what I look for in an average lager; refreshing, tasty, with a hint of bite.

Golden color with a disappearing white head. Aroma: citrus, caramel, grain. Taste: dominated by malt, but sweetness and some hops too. Ok beer.

Draft. Pours an amber body with an off white head. Some light floral notes with a hint of citrus but more masked by a grainy malt bill. Eh its okay.

Draft at Samuel Adams, Pittsburgh International Airport. Pours a bright gold/amber, nice off-white head. Aroma is hops and malt. Flavor is a touch of sweet malt, hops, a touch of bitterness on the finish.

Poured from the bottle into a double-walled pint glass. Pour produced a clear, amber body, topped by a generous head of white foam.. Malts are the predominant note in the aroma, with smatterings of hops for good measure. This has a moderate mouthfeel, with a crisp carbonation. The palate is clean with a dry, bitter finish, beginning with hints of caramel sweetness. After being absorbed by Miller, it is impressive that Samuel Adams produces a decent product.

Enjoyed via 12oz bottle and draft on several occasions. Pours a nice medium copper color, with a reasonably long-lasting white head. In the span of occasions in which I have sampled this beer, there have been some substantial differences in the aromas I’ve picked up. At times, it has been malt forward, showing a nice complexity between base malt and crystal malts. Other times, it has been very hop-forward, giving notes closer to an American pale ale that had been dry-hopped. My guess is that the samples had aged for different amounts of time, the hops having fallen out of the former as it got older. On the palate, the beer shows notes of malt and hop balance. I didn’t detect any indication of the use of a decoction mash (i.e, high levels of caramel and other melonoidins) but some malt complexity is noted. The hops make an appearance to pretty much balance the malt, although, as mentioned before, this depends on the age of the sample. The finish is clean and relatively dry. Overall, the original east coast microbrew is not a great beer in comparison with what has become commercially available since the early 1980s, but it does deliver in a manner that mass-produced industrial pale lagers cannot.