Reluctantly Admired
Written: Jun 13 '01 (Updated Jun 13 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Widely available, good American doublebock (for now).
Cons: Sometimes hard to find, not up to the Germans (or the Pennsylvanians).
The Bottom Line: Either it's not what it used to be, or I've progressed beyond it, or there were freshness problems. In any case, I have to say: go elsewhere, German or Pennsylvanian.
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| beerfly's Full Review: Samuel Adams Double Bock |
Well, I wasn't doing anything else tonight anyway.
This is the B side of a twin review of Paulaner Salvator and Samuel Adams Double Bock, the champ and the challenger. I've got two copies of Epinions open (okay, by the time I finished, I had three open), writing both reviews simultaneously. I suspect I'll be a bit woozy by the time they're both done, so I'm going to get some tasting notes down quickly.
The American challenger is Samuel Adams Double Bock, one of the most respected beers brewed by Boston Beer Company. It was originally designed by brewer Dave Grinnell. I talked to Dave shortly after the Double Bock had won yet another gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival. He told me that although the beer is not a big seller, "There is almost a moral imperative for someone in the U.S. to make the stuff." Brewery Production Manager Grant Wood urged me not to worry about the beer being dropped. "As long as we keep winning medals, we'll keep brewing it. Beer geeks admire the excess."
Yeah, well, some of them do.
Let's get some tasting notes in. This is much bigger beer than the Salvator, right away. Bigger in the mouth, and apparently bigger in alcohol, too: I feel more heat. According to German drinkers, this is not necessarily a good thing; supposedly the test of a truly good doublebock is that you never know how big it is until you try to stand up. So maybe it's not so much bigger as just a bit coarser.
SADB is darker than the Salvator, though neither are particularly opaque. The head is longer lasting, and there's more aroma, though it's not as purely malty as the Salvator, there are notes of fruit, and some oxidation. There shouldn't be those cardboard aromas: I bought this quite fresh, and I've had it under very cold, dark refrigeration ever since. There's a lot of difference here, in any case, and it's not clear who's the winner.
Hmmm... I'm afraid I'm going to have to do something stupid here. I need a third doublebock to compare to these two different beers. Hold on a sec, I just happen to have one here...
Spaten Optimator (and since Epinions inexplicably doesn't have ANY Spaten beers, I'll have to review it in Favorite Hard-to-find) is UP! Gotta taste it. (Good Lord, three doublebocks are looking me in the face on the desk here.)
This puts the SADB in a different light, and it's not a good one. The SADB just doesn't have the smooooooth malt character of the two Germans, in fact, it's just not that smoooooth at all, once it's compared. It's tasting kind of harsh and medicinal next to the Germans, and making the Salvator look pretty good. Really good.
I'm disappointed. The SADB has been a good friend at times, though this is only the third time I've compared it directly to the Germans. The first time was back in 1991, when everything may well have been different. SADB was being made at a different brewery and Salvator was supposedly a different, bigger beer. Both are fond memories, and I wonder what happened. Did I get that much more sophisticated in my tastes in 10 years?
I've heard geeks complain about this beer, I've heard it praised. I always praised it. Maybe I need to wait a year to do a purely fresh, brewery-recent sample. Errr... maybe not. I bought all three of these on the same day, they were stored under the same conditions, they were sampled at the same temperature in identical glasses.
Sam Adams came up short. End of story.
Here's the other two reviews:
http://www.epinions.com/content_27013779076 Paulaner
http://www.epinions.com/content_1672716420 Spaten
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
beerfly
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Member: Lew Bryson
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Reviews written: 88
Trusted by: 79 members
About Me:
One bourbon, one Scotch, one beer, eh? I'll take Kentucky Spirit, Scapa, and HopDevil.
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