Wife picked up some Sam Adams winter Lager from Sams Club. Rich fruity taste with cinnamon. This week she comes home with a Sam Adams variety pack. So far I tried the Irish Red (pretty good) and Double Agent (grapefruit juice?? WTF?).
This stuff tastes ok but its really not beer. Its a completely different beverage. Apple pie and egg custard pie. Yes they are both pies, but totally different tastes and textures.
I find myself wanting beer. A Becks, Pauli Girl, Moosehead, Dos Equis, Dark Michelob or even Budweiser. I want beer!!! Dammit.
Samuel Adams is ok once in awhile. But so far its not exactly satisfying my thirst for beer. Still got a lot of this Sam Adams variety pack to get through. I may have to get a six pack of bud when the wife isn’t looking.
Calling it “not beer” is a bit weird. Sam Adams is fairly middle-of-the-road. It’s the type of beer that usually can satisfy both BudMillCoors drinkers and more snooty beer drinkers alike. I’m not the biggest fan of the winter lager myself, but have you just tried the bog standard Sam Adams Boston lager? That’s just a straight-ahead Vienna lager. Perhaps my favorite version of that style. That shouldn’t taste too foreign to you. I’m surprised you found the Irish red “not beer,” too. That’s a fairly straight foward beer, as well. Double Agent doesn’t have grapefruit juice–that’s the hops. You might not like very hoppy beers, and there’s nothing odd about that.
Try the regular Sam Adams Boston lager as we as the Sam Adams Light, and let us know what you think. I’d be very surprised if someone who drinks Becks, Pauli Girl, and Dark Michelob would find either of those somehow “not beer”-like. I would also try the Noble Pils, if I had a chance.
Ace – sneaking off now to see whats in this Sam Adams variety pack. Hoping theres a “bog standard Sam Adams Boston lager” in there somewhere. If so, then I’ll drink one tonight and report back.
Becks is by far my favorite beer. Its so expensive that I only buy a couple six packs a year. Drink a bottle maybe every three or four weeks.
So far I’ve liked the Sam Adams that I tried. It just tastes and feels so different in my mouth. Like ice tea when you’re craving a Coke. I like both, but they are different.
Oh, I see what variety pack you have. It’s the Spring Thaw one. Here are the beers:
The ones you are going to find the most familiar to you, given the information you’ve given us, are the Boston Lager, the Irish Red, and maybe the Alpine Spring. I’ve never had that last one, so I can’t say for sure. Alpine Spring is modeled after an unfiltered style of German beer.
The White Lantern is in the Belgian witbier style. If you want to try “not beer”-like beers, just taste your way through Belgium. They do the whackiest and tastiest stuff to their beers. I can only have them in small doses, as I prefer English or German styles for everyday drinking. White Lantern is going to be similar to something like Hoegaarden or Blue Moon,
Maple Pecan Porter is going to be a rich, dark beer, with a lot of toasted malt flavor. If you don’t drink a lot of dark beers, it’s probably also going to fall into the “not beer” category for you.
Yeah, if you want something clean and crisp tasting, I would give both the Sam Adams Light and Noble Pils a shot. The regular Sam Adams Boston Lager is going to be a little bit heavier on the malt and hops than the Beck’s, but you might like it. I think Noble Pils will have more the flavors you’re going for, but they’re going to be a touch more hoppy than Beck’s, at least from my memory (it’s been ages since I’ve had Beck’s.) But I think you would enjoy those styles.
You need a Costco membership. It is weird that it’s almost the most expensive 6-pack at Safeway et al., and among the cheapest for a case at Costco. Can’t remember exact price, under a dollar a bottle.Cheaper than pisswater Corona, anyway. Good deals on Newcastle as well.
Yeah, it’s all beer. Usually the variety packs only have one weird one. The fall pumpkin beer is decent. The rauchbier (smoked) is… interesting. But when I buy Sam half cases, the Boston Lager is usually the one I look the least forward to.
Noble Pils is inoffensive, but I don’t consider it something I’d go out of my way to get. I am not a hop fiend, and I find it very lightly hopped.
Yeah, I didn’t want to comment on that. Maybe it depends on where you are, because it’s a pretty cheap import around here. It’s actually the same price as Sam Adams, usually, which is about $8.99/six pack. Looking at my local liquor store, the twelve-pack is actually cheaper than Sam Adams, with Beck’s being $12.99 and Sam Adams being $13.99.
shrug Different strokes. It’s the beer that got me into drinking beer, and still remains my favorite lager. I don’t understand any sort of dishwater comparison, to be honest. If my dishwater tasted like that, I’d be doing dishes much more regularly.
That’s what I was thinking as well. Beck’s isn’t unusually expensive really- about $9 per six-pack, which is the same ballpark (within a buck or so) of much better (IMO) German brands like Spaten, Paulaner, Hacker-Pshorr and Hofbrau.
Expensive is when a bomber of something costs more than $10 bucks on it’s own.
So if you liked the regular SA lager, you’ll probably like most European import lagers, and probably even that new Budweiser Black Label or whatever it’s called. (it’s the Los Angeles entry in the Budweiser Project 12 competition). You’ll also probably like the Coors Batch 13 pre-prohibition pilsner if you can find it. Both beers are lagers, but are a step above the generic stuff of their main brands.
My GF bought me an Ommegang gift pack last week. A big bottle of their Hennepin, Chocolate Stout, and Three Philosophers, and a glass.
It’s very highly rated beer, and it’s good stuff, but not something I’d want to drink every day. Halfway through a bottle I’m wanting a Yuengling or an MGD. Guess I just prefer swill.
Yay! I knew we’d find you something to like in the Sam Adams line-up. I drink a lot of “geeky” beers, but Sam Adams Boston lager is my first love, and you never forget your first love.
Yeah, I don’t know where aceplace57 is at, but it would be worth exploring to see if there are any Polish, Czech, or Slovak beers in the area. I live in an area with a large Central/Eastern European population, so it’s pretty easy to find them, but I suggest looking for the following brands:
You might find them at a cheaper price than your favorite German imports.
If you like dark beers, Zywiec and Okocim both have really awesome Baltic porters that are practically steals at their price, but they can be hard to find.
Also, try Pislner Urquell. I’ve had very mixed experiences with it here in the US. I don’t want to sound like one of those “the-beer-is-totally-different-over-there” types of drinkers, but it really is very different. I love Pilsner Urquell in the Czech Republic or neighboring countries. It just tases fresher, maltier, tastier. The stuff I’ve gotten in the US has almost invariably been a disappointment.
