Samuel Adams LongShot Cranberry Wit

Brewed by Boston Beer Company
Style: Fruit Beer
Boston, Massachusetts USA

Name: LongShot Cranberry Wit
Date: May 06, 2009
Mode: Bottle
Source: Roadtrip
Appearance: opaque peach, fine white head, lots of drippy lace
Aroma: light wheat aroma, touch of fruity tartness
Body: creamy body
Flavor: sweet fruity flavor, light tartness comes in for balance
Aroma: 5/10; Appearance: 7/10; Flavor: 6/10; Palate: 7/10; Overall: 11/20
Rating: 3/5.0
Drinkability: 8/10
Score: *4

Cloudy orangish amber color with a thin white head. Sweet aroma with hint of cranberry, citrus and cinnamon. Slightly tart flavor with hints of caramel, citrus and cranberry with a bit of spice.

Hazy yellow with a slight amber hue in the middle and a layer of white head. Aroma is awful. Like a weak adjunct beer and bile. There’s a bit of sweet fruitiness but it doesn’t redeem anything. Flavor is light, not very fruity, and not tart like I expected. A bit of caramel layers most of the flavor. Body is medium. Can’t get over the aroma though.

From a bottle poured a hazy golden color with a fair amount of head. Nice trat cranberry flavor with a quick finish.

12oz. Bottle: Aroma of wheat and a hint of cranberry. Poured amber/gold in color with a medium-sized white head that diminished but lasted around the edges. Hazy. Not sparkling. Flavor is neither sweet nor bitter. Tastes of wheat and a hint of spices. No cranberry in the flavor. Medium body. Average texture. Average carbonation. Wheat and herb finish.

Bottle from SL. The pour was fairly typical for the style, orangey color with a bit of haze and a nice head that yielded good lacing. Didn’t notice much pink or red about it. The aroma was cranberry juice, oranges, no spicing really that evident, perhaps some bananas. The flavor followed suite, again, lacking the coriander/clovey/spicing elements I was looking for. Wheaty base evident, though, slight bite in the finish, maybe an abnormal touch of hops present? Pretty drinkable if not for the too-much-fruit aspect, that stinking cranberry juice element. Mouthfeel was moderate and on par with the style, decent carbonation.

A subtle, tangy, buttered toast with jam aroma. I know that the Longshot winners are proud as heck that their smiling faces are on the label, but these labels are below the usual Sam Adams standard. No disrespect whatsoever to Ms. Sweigart, whose lovely visage graces this particular offering. The beer itself is a cloudy Tequila Sunrise color, like a red grapefruit wedding punch. Spicy, dry, a bit grassy, but pretty vacant. I wouldn’t say that it was thin or watery, it was just ... a bit blank. The finish and aftertaste were resurgent, and livened up the whole experience -- for this beer to be enjoyed you’ve got to swig it, and not sip it and let it roll around on your tongue. Light phenol at the very end.

Tallahassee, Fl. - Market Square Liquors - 12 oz bottle - part of the 2008 Homebrew Mixer. Nice murky dark orange pour with a silky white soft head that sticks around awhile. Brief whiff of coriander is pleasant. Flavor has a nice subtle fruity undertone that I do not initially attribute to cranberries but the more I drink the more I detect. Nice and subtle without being overbearing. Thick, creamy mouthfeel - just the right amount of carbonation. Very nice - good after dinner treat.