This, exactly.
If you’re in a bar or restaurant that doesn’t have “craft” or true small-brewery beer, chances are good someone in your party will ask “Do you have Sam Adams, if so which ones?”
Some of those places don’t seem to understand the “which one” question. I’ve been places where they say, “we have Bud, Miller and Sam Adams” (a step in the right direction) which means SA lager and they don’t know there are other kinds.
Anyway, if I’m in a restaurant and they only serve Bud and Miller, I won’t have a beer with dinner. If they have Sam Adams lager I might. If thay have a more interesting Sam Adams I probably will.
The glassware a beer is served in is very important IF the beer is the least bit interesting. If you are drinking out of an old shoe, Budwiser is perfectly fine.
Proof that choosing the proper drinking vessel will improve the taste.
It’s good but not great. If I’m in an area with a lot of microbreweries around I’ll go with something else but if I’m in a spot with all mass-marketed beers, I have a Sam Adams. Their Tripple Bock was pretty good though.
Your taste buds are sentient? Dude. 
Just came in to say Sam Adam is ok, not particularly special, but just about every style is drinkable, which is not true for every craft brewer.
I’m really digging the Alpine Spring, which has enough of a malt thing going that I wouldn’t have pegged it as a Lager at first taste. It’s also (as expected) better draught than bottled, but I imagine it can be difficult to find on tap.
Great! Though still, I gotta say, Boston was weird. There were plenty of places we went that in any other town I’ve visited would have had at least a handful of local microbrews. Not Boston. As you imply, it seems you have to seek out the right places.
I think we did see Harpoon in one or two places, and if I recall, it was good.
We go in for extremes around here. 
You get places competing to see how many different microbrews they can smoosh onto the menu. You get places that make their beer on site. And then you get places that look at you funny for thinking there’s beer other than Bud and Sam Adams. (Though I’ve gotta say, it’s a rare spot that won’t at least have the latter.)
Odds are though, that you just didn’t end up in places that “would have had” good beer elsewhere. It can be hard to judge hereabouts. I’m sure Motorgirl will steer you to some good ones though. 
Chicago is similar. In my part of town, I have to think about where I might be able to find a Goose Island (the largest local craft brewer). I honestly don’t think there’s a pub within two miles of me that serves it (but I stress that I live in an ethnic and blue collar part of town. You’ll have an easy time finding Zywiec, Okocim, Pacifico, Bohemia, Modelo, etc., here.) Even the Loop (downtown business district) can be patchy. Once you enter the popular 20-something and 30-something neighborhoods, yeah, it’s impossible not to find local craft brews on the menu, in which case Goose Island might even be passed up in favor of Half Acre, Revolution, Two Brothers, etc., and other, smaller, craft brews. But there’s still an incredible amount of places that have nothing much fancier than a Sam Adams, if that, available.
Sam Adams for all intents and purposes is a Miller Product. It’s distributed by Miller’s distribution network in every major market and it’s contract brewed by Miller across the country. Sam Adams is a macrobrew, period. That doesn’t make them bad, but they in no way are a beachhead in a sea of macrobrews. Sam Adams is Miller’s faux-microbrew product and they collaborate to market and sell it. Blue Moon is Coor’s (now owned by Miller) faux-microbrew and it too was distributed by Miller in the east and Coors in the west (now merged into one). When you see Blue Moon on tap, you’re simply seeing more Miller.
Budwesier is heavily investing in Goose Island as well as a few other large regional microbrews in an attempt to gain parity with Miller on this front since it’s Michelob/Shock Top/Bare Knuckle bands haven’t taken hold. It’s unclear if Budweiser intends to take one regional microbrew national or if it intends to compete locally with Sam Adams and Blue Moon with a bunch of more independent local partners. In Chicago the latter is apparently effective as Goose Island’s main lines (Honkers and 312) is gaining steam over the Miller offerings, whether they’ll take 312 and Honkers to the Coasts is yet to be determined or if they’ll continue to leverage relationships with brands like Widmer/Redhook in the west in various regions.
A nice beer served in the proper glass is a real joy. Lots of styles of beer have their own type of glass. Having said that, Sam Adams is an okay beer that I can order if there is nothing else more interesting on the menu.
For some reason, I’ve never liked the flavor of Sam Adams Boston Lager. I retry it occasionally to see if I’ve changed my mind, but it’s always “meh.”
I like a bold-flavored beer, and some of their other brews range acceptable to pretty good, but the flagship beer just tastes unpleasant to me.
No way. Blue Moon and Shock Top are “independent” breweries, but wholly owned by Coors and Anheuser-Busch. They try to to hide fact on their labels. Samuel Adams/Boston Brewing is an independent company (own stock symbol etc.) and not on the same level of those, whether is distributed and is maybe produced by Miller or not.
Sam Adams is fine, but I hardly consider it given the plethora of fabulous craft beers available out here. The only time I really think about having it is when we got to the Great American Beer Festival - I’ll stop by and see what the latest seasonal is, and then move on to some of the other 1800 breweries there.
I can’t remember the last time I had a Sam Adams, actually. The tiny liquor store near our house has a better range of craft brews than you can shake a stick at, and if I go out, it’s almost always to a brewpub with a huge range of choices.
I would vote that Sam Adams beer is special.
In the BJCP Guidelines they have several categories where their brews are listed as commercial examples:
3B - Oktoberfest/Marzen - Sam Adams Oktoberfest
4C - Schwarzbier - Sam Adams Black Lager
5C - Doppelbock - Sam Adams Double Bock
11C - Northern English Brown Ale - Sam Adams Brown Ale
13B - Sweet Stout - Sam Adams Cream Stout
21B - Winter Specialty Spiced Beer - Sam Adams Winter Lager
23 - Specialy Beer - Sam Adams Triple Bock
The commercial examples listed in these guidelines are considered to be the most accurate beer according to style: the first listing is the most accurate, the second listing is the second-most accurate, etc.
Another perspective: At the beer nerd websites like Ratebeer.com and Beeradvocate.com, the flagship Boston lager even scores quite well. Frankly, I’m a little surprised, but at ratebeer.com, the Boston Lager scores in the 97th percentile for its style, and on Beer Advocate, it’s #2 in its style “Vienna Lager,” behind Great Lakes’ Eliot Ness, and 87th-90th percentile overall.
I don’t care who brews it, but Sam Adams makes solid beers.
Maybe this will help.
Their brewing process is contracted out to Miller/Coors, but Miller/Coors does not own the product or any portion of Boston Brewing Co. (that I am available to find out about anyways).
I believe that Blue Moon and Shock Top have a similar relationship with Miller/Coors. I’d need to do a bit of homework to make sure I’m not lying to you, though.
Not sure what neighborhood you’re in but in Chicago racism and politics plays a big role in what beers are available. One of Budweiser’s distribution partners was owned by one of Jessie Jackson’s sons for the better part of a decade. As a result there were large chunks of the City, even those outside of their territory, refused to buy any product distributed by his company. In most cases this was pure above board racism. Even now that the company is sold (IIRC) the association remains and drinking trends are now well established.
For this reason in many of the blue collar areas of the city Budweiser and Goose Island are nigh on impossible to find.
Nope, Blue Moon and Shock Top are wholly owned subsidiaries of MillerCoors and Anheiser- Busch. Sam Adams is completely independently owned. It is NOT a macrobrew. As far as distribution, distribution is legally separated from Production and retail But there are gray areas, but just because MIller Distibution distributes Samuel Adams does not mean anything about Sam Adams being a product of Miller
Haven’t plowed through all the posts, but I think that SA is special.
It’s one of the few large breweries that produces a distinctive, bold tasting beer. Given the choice, I’ll go with a local microbrew every time, but at a bar that doesn’t have a large selection, SA is commonly available and MUCH better than the Bud, Coors, Miller products.
You have an extremely unusual definition of “independent”. As you note they are publicly held, the antithesis of “independent”. SABMiller is a major shareholder of Sam Adams. The Kochs still head up the company but they are accountable to shareholders just like every other CEO of a public company. They were no more “independent” than Budweiser was prior to the inBev takeover. Miller has thus far been hands off and they don’t own a majority share, but do not for a minute underestimate the importance of their marketing and distribution partnerships. Distribution and marketing are far more important in this industry than brewing or product management. When you walk into a bar and see 8 tap handles, those are allocated in most high volume venues purely based off marketing contracts with the distributors. Sam Adams went public at the same time that Miller acquired the contract to distribute and brew the beer which was no accident.
Sam Adams is different in that they didn’t start out as a child company like Blue Moon and Shock Top, but at this point the distinction is trivial.
Publicly held company. SABMiller owns a huge chunk of it. So do I for that matter via my 401k, but unfortunately I don’t have a big enough chunk to influence decisions. Koch nominally makes all the decisions but business decisions are colored greatly by their partners. When Miller wants to push a seasonal line nation wide, Miller brews it and sells it and markets it. Sam dictates the recipe and the creative, but they are advised by the same agencies that work for Miller.
No, Shock Top has always been a AB brand. It was founded by AB specifically to combat Blue Moon. It’s brewed in it’s own breweries, but they are owned wholly by AB. Blue Moon was also founded entirely by Coors. Both Blue Moon and Shock Top were incorporated in Colorado to attach themselves to the burgeoning craft brewing fad and sway voters at the GABF.