I had a Sam Summer Ale last night... this year's batch, still within expiration dates. It was reasonably awful; almost tasted like it may have skunked, but that seems unlikely, since Sam uses those clever brown-glass bottles and I'm pretty careful to keep my beer out of bright light anyway.
Anyone else out there (I like pretending that there are people who read this besides Nick) have the Sam Summer this year? Is it a crappy batch? I had another well-loved seasonal brew this summer (the Bell's Oberon--review forthcoming, and it was also sub-par, according to some beer-friends who know the beer well). Bad year for summer beers? Or did I just get a bad bottle?
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I haven't had the Sam Summer this year but I can say that I had a similar experience with the Bells. Last year's Oberon was perfectly yeasty, a little sweet, light, and a good amount of refreshing fruit. This year? A bit more sour, missing that refreshing fruit flavor, and still yeasty but not in that delicious sweet bready way it was last year.
Not sure what the cause of this is but I can say that it's sad when a beer you wait all year for isn't as good as you expect it to be.
In other news, had Allagash beer dinner at Granville's with the Black and the Curieux on tap. The Black is their Belgian style stout. I'm not a stout person by any means (unless it's a bourbon barrel stout..it's well established that I love anything that tastes like bourbon) but people who like stouts said it was tasty. And the Curieux on tap was...well...heaven.
Really glad you brought this up.
I didn't think this year's batch of Sam Summer was as bad as you say, but it was definitely down a notch from years past.
This is a weird phenomenon, the poor quality control in seasonal beers. Off the top of my head I can think of a four or five brews that have changed significantly from year to year.
How is it that other industries can do such a good job of ensuring their products are virtually indistinguishable year in and year out but microbreweries often have problems?
I drank a ton of Sam Adams Summer Ale over in Boston just a few days ago, and I was loving it.
bought the summer variety pack of sam adams from costco. Worst beer i have had in months...i literally had about 3 sips before i couldnt stomach any more of it and tossed the rest of the bottle. I have now had one bottle of each variety in the pack and can honestly say it is the worst variety pack of beer i have ever bought.
I ran through several six-packs of Sam Summer in DC this June, and they were all excellent, but then I had a draft Sam Summer in Boston yesterday, and it was terrible. Like you said, maybe they expired early for some reason.
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