Bear with me. I'm going to take you on a trip through my heaven, to the pits of hell, and introduce you to the angel that fed me cool water by the fires.
I started drinking better beer in 1981, on Holy Thursday. I was lucky. In those largely pre-micro days, I lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where plenty of imported beer could be found. My medieval history professor laughed at the Stroh's I'd selected and bought me an Altenmünster. It changed my life. Unlike most Americans, I had tasted hops.
The next few years were filled with grad school in Pittsburgh (Yuenglings, Straub, more imports), then a year off at home, tending bar (a lot of Yuengling, imports, and liquor), grad school in DC (the amazing selection of beer at the Brickskellar and Guinness at the Irish pubs... and some really good draft Schaeffer. Really.), another year at home (cheap beer and dreams), then my first career job in Hampton, Virginia in 1985.
That's when I first encountered a real beer wasteland. I brought cases of Yuengling down whenever I visited home, but they didn't last long in the heat (because I drank 'em real fast). As fate would have it, there is now an award-winning micro not three blocks from where I lived then in pink-brick squalor, listening to the newlyweds squeal in the next apartment and plotting campaigns against the roaches, but back then, I drank Coors a lot, and sweat a lot too. It was horrible, it was exile, it was unfair, and I chafed and complained.
But I soon got transferred to Kentucky, though at first it was worse. Then I discovered a bar in Louisville, 45 minutes' drive away, and was there every weekend, sometimes twice. They had over 120 beers, mostly imports, and good ones: Hacker-Pschorr Maibock, EKU 28, Redback, Bios Copper, Chimay Red. There was also draft Killian's Red, before Coors gutted it by making it a lager. It was good in those days, fruity, luscious, intriguing. I was happy.
No, I thought I was happy. Then I got transferred to California, Salinas, and I was in hog heaven. I roamed the micros and brewpubs, I hit beer fests, I drank imports I'd never seen before. It was wonderful, and in September of 1987 I began keeping my first beer diary. I'd never been so beer-happy in all my life.
When I got transferred to DC in a year, things didn't even slow down. Micros followed me east, and Sierra Nevada and Anchor were to be had. The Brickskellar was doing their monthly tastings and I was exposed to whole worlds of beer; the Belgian tasting with the ambassador and the trade minister, the cask tasting of Young's Winter Ale, a night of smoked beers... Wow.
I fell in love, (no, I mean with a woman) and moved to Connecticut to be with my fiance. Here, in 1989, I began to experience large swaths of hell. Boston rocked, there were small oases in Connecticut, and Catamount was pushing outward, but I ran into a lot of scary-looking tap selections. Was it going to be Coors again? After all I'd been through?
That's when I got to be real good friends with Samuel Adams. I'd met the man before, in bars in New England and even in DC. He was a good guy to know, but I was hanging out with the English and German crowd, and those younger guys, the Harpoons and Catamounts (and the losses from those days: remember Nathan Hale Ale? Hope? Red Rooster? Charter Oak?). The day I finally realized how truly outstanding Samuel Adams and his friend Jim Koch were came in mid-summer in Littleton, NH.
Now, New Hampshire has always been a little bit backwards, beer-wise. It's always been harder to find a good beer there than in the surrounding states. So when we sat down in the seafood restaurant I wasn't surprised to learn that my only two real choices with dinner were Samuel Smith Pale Ale and draft Sammy A. Tough call. The Sammy Smith is almost certainly older, and has been sitting in the display cooler just soaking up rays. The Sammy A is not really what I want... or so I thought. I mentally flipped a coin, and the Dutchman in me says, "Well, it's draft... and it's cheaper!"
Boy, was it ever good, too. Fresh Sammy A, and this was fresh as bejayzus, is good, good stuff. From the first floral whiff of hops (they call the Hallertau Mittelfrüh and Tettnang Tettnanger hops used in Sammy A "noble hops," and you'll know why once you whiff 'em), to the bread-fresh and limber malt body, to the zingy hop flavor and finish, right down to that first hoppy belch ('scuse me) after about your third sip, you know you've got a serious beer going here.
Golden color, frothy white head, this is a proud lager beer. Some duck at calling it a pilsner because Boston Beer doesn't; if it hops like a pilsner, gravities like a pilsner, and drinks like a pilsner, hey boys! It's a pilsner! It's happy with red meat and salty stuff, it worked pretty well with the broiled flounder I had that day because it's so darned clean and brisk.
It sure saved the day in Littleton. I can't remember how long the wife and I sat there, soaking up that fine, fine beer, exclaiming over how fresh it was, how hoppy it was without being overwhelmingly bitter, how delicate yet assertive a beer it was. I know we walked back to our hotel and picked up the car in the morning.
I've had occasion to praise the presence of Sammy A since then. Thanks to the ceaseless efforts of Boston Beer Co. and its driving force, Jim Koch, Samuel Adams Boston Lager is available almost anywhere, and a lot more places than any other "good beer." From tiny towns in Pennsylvania, to beer halls in Minnesota, to supper clubs in Kansas, I've found Sammy A a welcome pleasure.
I just praised his name this past weekend. I was in Bardstown, Kentucky, with my publisher John for the Kentucky Bourbon Fest. After two days of bourbon, great bourbon, and the big all-you-can-drink Gala Tasting Tent, we left on Sunday for the airport in Louisville. Long about noon, we were ready for a beer after all that corn likker. The one bar with multiple taps was closed, looked like the workers had overslept. We cast about and, sure enough, found a counter with a Sammy A tap.
The barmaid served them up in big 22 oz. glasses, and Lord, were they fresh and delicious. It was golden and colden, and the hops were insistent and persistent. Slaking a thirst with this was pure pleasure. There are better beers, perhaps, though I wanted nothing more at the moment, and couldn't think of anything I'd rather have. There are more complex beers, though there is a time and a place for complexity, and it is limited.
There are few more often-welcomed beers, though. Sammy A is sometimes the only beacon for the wandering beer-lover, the haven for flavor. It arrives, pleases, and the moment of angst is over; you can get on with conversation and dining. This is truly a beer that anyone has the capacity to enjoy, given a little bit of effort. Hey, look at all the work Sammy's put into being there for you: give him a serious try.
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