Samuel Adams LongShot Grape Pale Ale

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

From a bottle poured amber with a good amount of head. Flavor of sweet malt with not much of a grape flavor. Flavored with molasses, and ending with a quick finish.

One of the few fruit beers that is not completely offensive: the grape tones are not overdone, though there is a somewhat unwanted aftertaste; overall it’s a little light on beer and a little light on grape, so the brew doesn’t actually deliver what it promises; overall, it’s about middle of the road

This fruit beer pours a medium orange gold color from a 12 oz bottle. Small to medium sized white foamy head, with a quickly dissipating head. Aroma is malty, some grape and grain. Medium bodied fruit beer. The malts are bready and sweet. The hops are floral and earthy. The grape flavors are more pronounced at the finish, there also seems to be a bit of oakiness as well. Touch of diacetyl as well. Kind of an interesting beer, you can definitely see and taste the homebrew origins in this one. Not quite sure it works, but it is interesting and glad that Boston Beer Company goes out n a limb, sort of, to make beers like this. Mouthfeel is full. Finish is crisp and clean. Aftertaste is slightly bitter with a hint of grape skin.

Too be honest, I didn’t taste but grape in this at all and thought it was a rather weak offering.

Poured a clear, vibrant dark copper color with a medium thick bright white head and stringy lacing. Weak aroma of buttery bread and caramel No hop presence or fruit hints, which is odd considering this is a grape pale ale. Mild and filling with an airy finish that comes across as rather empty. Neutral flavor of creamy, nutty malt. Some notes of caramel and bread with an offsetting butter taste. Where’s the hops!? Where’s the grapes!? All of the flavors I was expecting never showed themselves, the beer itself is decent but doesn’t reflect it’s name at all.

12 oz. bottle. Poured a nice amber color with a nice head. Aromas were prominently malty and grainy with a touch of sweetness which I can only assume was the grape. Flavors are of malt and a sweetness reminscent of syrup and grapes (Which while I was drinking reminded me of the smell of raisin bran). A decent brew, but steps down from what I had hoped for or the level of excitement the name had me hoping for.

A vigorous pour produces an almost three-finger thick, pale, tan colored crown of froth. The beer is a brilliantly clear, deep copper / amber color that shows bright copper color when held up to the light. As I visually inspect this beer the aroma smells like a mix of water-downed grape juice and macro-lager. A deeper smell of the aroma intensifies these notes, but doesn’t seem to make them all that more appealing. Sharp, yet sweet, fermented grape notes make me think of cheap box-wine, but there is a finish of dry, cracker-like malt aromas that is just noticeable. Other than the cheap beer-like quality I get not real hop character here.

Fairly dry up front, but it picks up a cheap box-wine sweetness towards the finish. Bits of caramelized malt, a touch of biscuit-like grain character and perhaps a hint of herbal hop character in the finish lets one know, fairly unconvincingly I might add, that this is beer. The combination of beer & grape flavors are both washed out here and in combination they just seem to clash.

The best analogy for me really is of cheap, really bad box-wine, which this actually tastes of, but the beer characteristics are on the same level. The grape character makes this seem cheaply fermented, a bit metallic and sweet. Really just a poor tasting beer.

Pours a clear light orange with a finger of frothy, off-white head. The nose is sweet and fruity with notes of candy sugar, grapes and Juicy Fruit. Medium-bodied and slick with a dry, almost tannic, finish. I found it a bit overly dry for a beer this sweet; an odd effect. The label describes the flavor as being similar to "biting into a green seedless grape before drinking a pale ale." That is fairly accurate only the grape note is primarily of the skin rather than the flesh of the fruit. The result isn’t all that appealing. Of all the Longshot entries, this was in the top 3?