Sam Adams Latitude 48

Boston Beer Co.
Boston, MA
Latitude 48 IPA

The name of this beer comes from the northern hemispheres 48^th parallel, which is called, in the brewniverse, The Hop Belt. Hops seem to thrive here, and Sam Adams has taken samples from Germany, England, and the US.

The pour is energetic, breathing life into nearly an inch of yellowed head. The color is a reddish dun, with amber gold highlights peeking through the impeccable clarity.

Sam Adams Latitude 48

The nose features a surprising softness of malt, though hops soon take over as tobacco and mint arrive in the forefront. Some peppery spice also emerges, perhaps from those Nobles.

The mouthfeel is quite good, with the fine effervescence spreading widely across the tongue. Malt makes a brief appearance, only to duck quickly, like a whack-a-mole, as the hop hammer prepares to drop. It is not subtle, and starts out sharp and metallic. Bark and grass emerge, along with tobacco. Slowly, a mint leaf presence hits the back of the swallow accompanied by some sweet cream, hinting that maybe the malt mole might return. However, all that’s left is mild alcohol warmth joined by parsley green hops.

It’s nothing earth-shattering, but the brief cameos by an English hop ball-peen and a German hop mallet save this from being just another Pac NW hop sledgehammer.

Buzzards Bay Pale Ale

Buzzards Bay Brewing Co.
Westport, MA
Pale Ale

This Pale Ale was a special edition brew that was specifically for BoTMC. It’s important to note that it is a true pale, not an IPA.

The color is hazy and coppery – orange and amber with more rustiness than ruddiness.  A yellowish foam rapidly disappears, though an obligatory layer of film gets fed by slow and steady carbonation. Clarity is decent, but there is a bit of fog throughout.

The nose has a sweetness about it – gingerbread and a bit of cinnamon and brown sugar. Breathe a bit deeper and some oily, piney hop aromas emerge with a hint of tobacco and raisin bread.

A soft yet sparkling texture helps the hops emerge from behind the bready malt base. A subtle crispness hits the palate first – light pastry with just a touch of buttery sweetness and a bit of orange rind – followed by a nearly perfectly balanced tartness that rides on the coattails of the initial citrus flavors. The finish is not quite pristine, hoppy with less earthiness than the nose and more Goldings tang.

This is definitely an ale but a well-balanced one that is as close to an English pub ale as most any in the US and from a bottle. It’s not going to blow your mind, but it’s a good example of the style and a session ale with enough going on to keep you interested.

Sam Adams Oktoberfest

Boston Beer Co.
Boston, MA
Oktoberfest

Tomorrow, your friendly neighborhood Brew Yorker is traveling to London for the first time since starting the Brew York City beer blog. With many beautiful beers to try in Merry Olde, I’ll try to report as much as possible, but expect dimly lit pub photos.

In the meantime, here’s an Oktoberfest to get in the fall spirit.

What a lovely copper beer! Amber, dark honey and dark orange preserve shimmer through the untouched clarity and lively carbonation. A solid half inch of head slows down at a quarter inch and is as smooth and slightly off-white as new snow under a forest canopy. The surface teems with the life of the effervescence from below.

The nose has a lot of malt – sugary cereal initially emerges but soon the hops take over with a crisp grassiness and some mildly earthy cooked vegetables.

The mouthfeel is a beautiful thing, creamy as the snowy head hits, then full and tingly as the carbonation dances in second. Initially smooth malts like cream of wheat come about, followed by a metallic and tangy zest of orange peel. There is an amazing interplay between that tanginess and an overall smoothness from the malt. There is alcohol present, but there’s no unseemly heat from it.

I could sit outside on a cool fall day and drink an alarming amount of these. This beer is smoother than Billy Dee Williams, yet is as sharp as his style.

Harpoon IPA

Harpoon Brewery
Boston, MA/Windsor, VT
IPA

It all started on a snowy Boston night in 1995, a friend and I walked back to my college house from the liquor store; in my arms, a case of Lionshead (at $9.19 out the door, the steal of my college days) in his, a six-pack of Harpoon IPA, also about $9.19. Add a label with flowers on it, and I figured I had him dead to rights.  I asked him what the deal was with his girly flower beer. He didn’t say anything, he simply handed me a bottle. That night I became a hop head.

There are so many IPAs now it is hard to keep your head around them all, many are good, however few really stand out. Sierra Nevada set the gold standard of the great American IPA and gets the majority of the praise, but Harpoon offers us another main stream delight, that is in the same league as our good friends in Chico.

Of the many great things about Harpoon, the color is the first noticeable attribute; deeply copper in hue, its frothy head sits atop like a thick cumulus cloud.
The aroma, as the label suggests, is quite floral, almost like an English garden with many varieties in it.

The “mouthfeel” as my eloquent brother calls it, is full and easily the most perfectly hoppy grog ever. Even with its huge hop-a-long, there is a wonderful caramel overtone that keeps everything in check, balancing all the fruit, flower and almond flavors like a symphony. The finish is mega-smooth but with equal hop strength throughout. Too many IPAs try to dazzle either right at tongue impact or conversely in the throat. Harpoon IPA offers so many different flavors simultaneously but keeps it even throughout.

It’s been a long time since college, it’s been about five minutes since my last Harpoon.

Sam Adams Black Lager

Boston Beer Co.
Boston, MA
Samuel Adams Black Lager

Part of Sam’s Brewmaster’s Collection of specialty beers, specifically “classic” styles according to the site, the Black Lager is an example of a German-style lager that combines lager (bottom-fermenting) yeast and roasted malts. Usually these have a lighter body than your typical roasted malt beer like porter or stout, but have a nice addition of toasted flavors. Anyway, I think that Sam is a good brewery and I like what they’ve been doing with their BC.

Sam Adams Black Lager

The color is a surprisingly opaque espresso black with faint chestnut brown accents around the edges. A khaki head caps the brew nicely, settling down in this stout little glass with a frothy oculus around the inside of the rim.

Taking a deep breath, there is an instantly recognizable roasted char aroma. It is pleasant and not acrid, sitting beneath dank and resinous pine odors as well as a bit of damp tobacco leaves and a little bit of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies.

The mouthfeel is wonderfully complex, combining some fine effervescence with a smooth and slightly creamy texture that coaxes out the soft milk chocolate character of the malt. A brief murmur of peppery hops comes around right at the very end of the swallow just to make sure you know you are drinking a lager.

This is an eminently drinkable brew and a fine addition to the landscape of American beer. This would be awesome with a really nice char-grilled burger and some sweet potato fries.

Farmington River Mahogany Ale

Farmington River Brewing Co.
Ipswich, MA
Mahogany Ale

Another of Mercury’s vast number of brews, this is labeled as an ESB. This basically means it’s an English-style pale ale.

Deep copper like dark maple syrup or molasses spread thin, the beer puffs up to a thick pillow of yellowed head. Even after pouring, photographing, and writing up til here, the beer maintains an inch of foam.

My apartment smells of rich mahogany

The nose is more floral than I would have thought – piney, resinous hops with touches of tobacco, charcoal, and even a faint whiff of cannabis. However, the malt comes through with wafting odors of baked pretzel, graham crackers, and dried stone fruit.

The mouthfeel is excellent – full, but without any coating. The beer is nice and dry. The head, with its popover lightness stays put and adds to the sip. The flavors are subtly bready, but are not without graceful brushstrokes of hops. Wet cereal, walnuts, and some very light citrus and apricot all show up, the citrus showing up in the form of orange or tangerine close to the end.

Though it won’t satiate any hopheadery, hop fans and bitter lovers will appreciate this brew. It’s a nice round ale that would accompany shepherd’s pie just fine.

Harpoon Leviathan Imperial IPA

This will likely be my last beer review from the Great State of Texas. I am moving back to New York after six months of sampling some stellar brews down in Dallas. So, while my last beer in Texas is not a Texas beer, I thought it fitting to review a big beer, since everything is bigger in Texas.

Harpoon Brewery
Boston, MA/Windsor, VT
Leviathan Imperial IPA

The pour is pugnacious – a dense orange-tinged head detonates and rests for a while at an inch before descending to a rocky half-inch. The color is polished copper with beautiful clarity and very nice orange tones. The effervescence is lively, with serpentine strands of fine bubbles gyrating up the glass.

The nose is floral and piney as expected, but not too aggressively so. A fine grapefruit aroma sifts its way in there as well. There is a gentle malty smell – like saltwater taffy – behind all the hoppiness.

The mouthfeel is excellent. It is not nearly as gummy and cloying as I thought it might be. There is a wonderful sere quality to it which provides a clean look at the flavors without pulling a Popeye pucker. Warm alcohol notes are certainly prevalent – there is no denying the 10%ABV tag that this beer carries – but there is also a creaminess to the brew that most IIPAs don’t have. Certainly, the hops are bitter and citric and piney, but even non-hopheads might appreciate the initial softness of each sip.

This is a big-ass beer, to be sure, and hopheads are sure to salivate between every saliva-sapping sip; at 122 IBUs, it’s off the charts. However, it’s not just a hopheader, this beer is worth a try. Also, that creamsicle head leaves a wonderfully craggy lacing.

Buzzards Bay Altbier

Buzzards Bay Brewing
Westport, MA
Limited-release Altbier

Even before Buzzards Bay did away with its branded beers, this was a limited release. I’m not sure when I got it, but I didn’t want to sample the Shiner Light I have sitting in the fridge so I’m taking my chances.

With good clarity, you can see plenty of the slow, steady, large bubbles work their way through the soft honey copper pour. A rocky, slightly off-white head settles to a half-inch, sticking on the way down.

Apologies for the uncentered pic. I just love the light passing through the bottle...

The nose is a combination of grassy and malty. Cucumber and parsley meets carob and bread. It has a bit of damp canine as well.

The mouthfeel is a bit thin at first, then seems to coat the tongue slightly. The flavor is subtle, and your mind wants it to be malty because of the amber color, but the tastebuds just refuses to comply.  If anything, this comes across as a subtle Dortmunder, lacking the hoppy pizzazz of pilsners.

Altbiers are technically ales – using top-fermenting yeasts, even though lager’s pale malts are used – and this beer is crisp and clean and clear like lager. This particular beer is nice, it has some subtle complexity, but lacks any real body. Of course, this bottle is at least seven months old, so it’s not ideally fresh.

That said, it drinks like a session and would pair nicely with foods for anyone who wants something not too filling, but with less pop than a pils.

Fisherman’s Bavarian Wheat

Cape Ann Brewing Co.
Gloucester, MA
Fisherman’s Bavarian Wheat

The pour starts off excessively lively, as many wheats do. I fine and active orange head flies up, capping the beer with a crackling half-inch. It dissipates rapidly, but not entirely thanks to some of the most lively carbonation I’ve seen. Perhaps helped by the tight confines at the bottom of the glass, the finest pearls of effervescence rise up in countless gossamer strands.

At the wider part of the glass, the beer is burnt orange in color, with peach and very fine khaki accents visible through the translucency of the haze. Below, a more yellow marigold is illuminated.

The nose is mostly banana, but has some spice as well, including coriander and clove, as well as a sweet floral like a paperwhite. Looking into the glass, the head persists at a little less than a quarter of an inch, and the surface is teeming with bubbles.

The mouthfeel is decent. I find that many wheat beers tend to be a bit thinner than I like but this beer manages a bit of body, aided in no small part by the carbonation. The first flavor is a pleasantly wheaty graininess like breakfast cereal (but without all that pesky riboflavin). The beer opens up with a sharp smack of citrus that is neither orange nor lemon. It is somewhere between sour and sweet and accompanies the crispy grain nicely. There is a hint of dryness in the back, but mostly you are left with a slightly concentrated dose of those citrus fruits.

Somewhere in between the grain and the fruit is a bit of spice, but it doesn’t hit you quite hard enough before it is overpowered. Nonetheless, for this style, it is refreshing and might do if you’re looking for a wheat with something slightly different to it.

Fisherman’s Ale

Cape Ann Brewing Co.
Gloucester, MA
Fisherman’s Ale

Another Mass brew, this time from GLAW-stah (under contract from Olde Saranac), it’s labeled as a “Kölsch-style ale” so it will get a kolsch-style glass. Though Kolsch is a clear, golden, German (Kölsch=Köln=Cologne) beer that is stored (lagered), it is top-fermented and technically an ale, not a lager (sorry for all the parenthetical phrases).

The color is bright gold, with a tinge of orange. A rocky white head is slow to form and quick to settle, though large globular carbonation launches erratically to the top.

The nose is sweeter than you might expect. There is a starchiness to the aroma and it reminds most of warm French fries – certainly appealing.

The mouthfeel is full and the large bubbles help expand the flavor. A faint sweetness rises quickly, but doesn’t cloy. Rather, it gives way to a clean, metallic taste of Euro or Noble hops.

With more body than a pilsner and less bite than a Dortmunder, Kolsch is always a nice quaff. This particular brew is an excellent sample of the style and would be great if you’re looking for something with a bit more depth than most standard pilsners.