Samuel Adams LongShot Old Ale

Formerly brewed at Boston Beer Company
Style: Old Ale
Boston, Massachusetts USA

Pours clear brownish ready with steady effervecence and a medium white head. Aroma is of sweet biscuit and brown malts, brown sugar, and a bit of hard caramel. Flavor smooth brown sugar, a bit of cotton candy, rich maltiness like dipping your finger in dried amber malt extract and licking it yet is kept from being cloying by a nicely balanced (for an old ale) earthy maybe even at time slightly citric and piney hop bitterness. The alcohol becomes noticable as a slight warmth on the finish. Aftertaste is on the sweet side but balanced enough to still be very drinkable. Palate is creamy and smooth, body is full but not heavy, I think the carbonation keeps if from weighing down the tongue. Solid beer overall.

Opulent cherry amber with a fuzzy tan head that hangs around long term. Aroma pursues happiness with dates and figs and deep cherry plum vats dancing at the forefront. Rummy apple butter lovingly vexes the nostrils with a hint of gummy rubber to smooth out the rougher edges. Pistachios seep into amaretto liquor for the final aromatic frontier. Digging it indeed. Full flavorful stride brings out amaretto liquor and toffee melting into one sticky graham base, lined with palatable caramel crème. Dates get melted with liquefied brown sugar as pralines add a semi-dusty motif. Big flavored brethren elicits hot rum butter at the tip of the tongue along with the tonsils, while the plank between the two crave more sweet and salty salvation. Cherry toffee takes control with a significant contribution from sweet cherry saturated, raw and wholesome oat flakes. Creamy, authoritative and balancing intuition at each sip. Minor bitter beats hum like sweetened cherry magnolias at their sweetest stage of development. Ripe rum rides down sweet maple wood and garners some maple syrup in the process, finishing dry and cotton like on a highly palatable day.

Clear copper, maybe bronze. Hooooj rocky tan head that towers over the rim of the glass. Nice aroma - Walnuts and cinnamon and maple and whiskey. Aroma is nicely echoed in the flavor, with a mildly woodsy finish. Really tasty, and hides its 10.6% really well.

Bottle. Primarily a prune malt with a hint of smokiness. Dark brown with a small head. Very syrupy dried fruit (raisins and prunes) and malt. Moderate hops finish. Nice beer but very sweet - will let the second bottle age a while.

i found the beer to be just too sweet. the flavor was like a fruit tea. and very syrupy. the malt and the alcohol were well hidden and that’s craft. but i need a carbonation profile -none here-. i would say sorry but maybe too much body. since the flavor is ok, but common in many other beers. i liked getting a buzz off of one beer, but then i had to skip my usual 2nd. and this wasn’t worth it. i’ll try it again in december.

Bottle (12oz). Clear, deep refractive mahogany, smallish diminishing tan fizzy head. Very sweet aroma, cherry, sugar - reminds me of a confectioners’ shop - some earthy, licorice notes on warming, hardly any booze at all. The taste - my, that’s nice - thick, cherry syrup, almost kirsch-like, faint oak and peat, very warming. Syrupy body, alcoholic and mostly still mouthfeel, quick finish - very nice, quite sweet and fruity, but I like it.

Bottle, in memory of eboats’ dog. Rest in peace, lil’ pooch. Pours a rich, deep cherry furniture red with a nice aroma of sublte banana and sharp raspberry. A bit of chocolate-covered cherry seems to be in there as well. Flavor falls flat, like an Old Stock that has been left in a hot car for an extended period of time. Notes of espresso, cherry, strawberry, and chocolate are there, but the aforementioned flatness ruins them. Respectable mouthfeel.

Decent beer. Way too sweet for me. It must be sipped slowly. Full bodied and complex, not at all watery. The sweetness hides the alcohol well.