Samuel Adams Imperial White Ale

Brewed by Boston Beer Company
Style: Belgian White (Witbier)
Boston, Massachusetts USA

Bottle from Wine and Beer Westpark on 03/28/2009. Hazy pale copper amber body with a medium frothy off-white head. Sweet caramel and fruit aroma with lots of spice, anise, coriander, grains of paradise, and some sweet orange zest. Sweet caramel and orange zest flavor with some coriander on a wheat background. Medium body with moderately high carbonation.

Orange/amber pour, very dark for a wit of sorts, tall white head that falls quickly. Sticky sweet body, chewy caramel, and softer coriander. Fusel nose and finish, quite a bit of excess alcohol. I thought this beer was an overall mess.

12 oz bottle. Deep orange beer with a thick creamy white head. Massive chewy aroma. There is a lot of heavy chewy sweetness. There is a lot of big orange citrus aroma. It smells like unfermented orange juice. Intense wheaty/bubble gum maltiness on the nose that initially reminds me of Smuttynose Wheat Wine. The flavour though is God-awful. Rotted banana and oranges over a heavy chewy sweetness. Underattenuated and candyish with an overly sticky chewy sweetness. Meh, this stuff is awful. Drainpour.

12 oz bottle. Pours a light-cloudy orange/yellow color. Aroma is pretty standard for a Belgian white. Flavor is yeast, spice, hops. Alcohol is hidden incredibly well for being over 10 percent. Beer is kind of a gimmick (high alcohol content) since there are better Belgian white beers out there that are much less expensive.

Bottle from Bev4less: Color was a strange dense orange color which I find weird only because after all this is a white ale style. Nose is highly equipped with an assortment of spices and some support from a malt caramelized base. The flavor is initially sweet with a reminder of cotton candy because of the sugar levels. This wasn’t what I was expecting since the bottle stated Imperial White but leave it up to a major micro company to go and create a new experiment that just didn’t work out right.

Appearance: A hazy, cloudy light iced-tea clor. A thin, tight knit layer of suds sits atop. Aroma: Bazooka Buble Gum or Dubble Bubble from a far. Upon closer investigation, I can smell a bit of wheaty grain, but mostly fruity bubble gummy yeast. Taste: Bananas, bubble gum, caramel, and a dose of bitter hops in the middle and finish. Mouthfeel: Thick, almost syrupy. Overall: Too sweet and heavy to drink more than one of these ever. I’ll give a nod to the 10.3 % abv.

Poured a hazy orange/brown with a medium stable white head. Aroma was very sweet with hints of apricot and orange. Maybe some wheat in the aroma as well. Taste is slightly fruity and sweet and starts off creamy. Finish is strong of hops and alcohol. I wasn’t sure what I would think of an imperial white, because whites are usually refreshing and not too strong. This turned out OK, but it’s not that refreshing with the alcohol taste.

Bottle thanks to 17thfloor. Cloudy orange, with medium beige head. Aroma is spice, alc, hairspray, big orange peel, clove. Orange, sweet caramel malt, alc, hairspray again, almost balanced but hairspray on the finish kind of wins out. Medium to full, creamy body. There are things that I really like about this beer and others that I don’t quite think hit the mark. Overall much more drinkable than then imp. double bock.