Samuel Adams Boston Lager: The Beer Revolutionary

According to lore, Samuel Adams, with fistfuls of Boston Lager, stood up to his beer brewing oppressors and lead the craft beer revolution of the past twenty years.  There is actually quite a bit of truth to this story and this is one of the reasons why I chose it to be the topic of my inaugural brew tale.  Not only was Samuel Adams one of the craft beer pioneers, but it is also responsible for my own personal beer revolution, introducing me to the world of beer beyond the bland, American light lager produced by the "big boys."

It may surprise you to know that throughout much of American history, beer brewing and consumption were staples of American life.  Traditionally, beer was brewed and consumed locally. For example, in 1887, there were over 2000 breweries in the country, which is a relatively large number considering the population was roughly 1/6 of what it is today.  However, starting in 1920, the American beer industry suffered a number of setbacks that resulted in just 89 breweries in 1979, with but a handful of mega-brewers dominating the industry.

Number of Breweries courtesy Brewers Association

The first cataclysmic event was the passing of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which ushered in the  Prohibition era thus making the production and transportation of alcohol illegal.  Upon being repealed in 1933 (the only U.S. Amendment to ever be repealed), the number of breweries steadily declined due to cultural aversions to alcohol, slow recovery from the Great Depression, the build-up to and aftermath of WWII, and increased government regulations.

The breweries that emerged from this era, bearing names such as Anheuser, Busch, Coors, and Miller, were those that could mass produce and transport beer to the growing population. The style of choice was a light German lager, which was cheaper to produce, had a better shelf life, and designed for refreshment rather than taste to appeal to the majority of beer drinkers. As the smaller regional breweries closed, the few remaining breweries grew to dominate the beer landscape. By the 1980s, most Americans never knew of any beer besides the mass-produced lagers from the beer giants.

In 1979, the beer industry found a hero in President Jimmy Carter who signed legislation that deregulated the beer industry and legalized home brewing.  One such home brewer, was Jim Koch, a Boston businessman and a third generation beer brewer.  In his kitchen he first brewed what ultimately became Samuel Adams Boston Lager based upon a a family recipe for a full-flavored German lager.  It was a beer unlike anything that was commercially available so in 1981, Jim followed his heart, quit his well-paying job, opened a small brewery, and began selling his beer one bar at a time. The beer was an immense success and served as a role model for many of the craft brewers that followed.  22 years later, Samuel Adams is now the biggest American craft beer brewery in the country and the entire craft beer industry is thriving with well over 2000 breweries in the country.  Jim Koch is a personal hero of mine and he clearly deserves to be considered one of the craft beer pioneers!

A "Craft Brewer" according to the Brewer's Association: Small: Annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less.  For reference, Anheuser Busch produces over 120 million barrels annually. Independent: Less than 25% of the craft brewery is owned or controlled by an industry member who is not a craft brewer. Traditional: A brewer who uses all malt or uses adjuncts to enhance, not lighten flavor.  This one is in direct contrast to the mega-brewers who use rice and other adjuncts to produce flavorless alcohol in their light lagers.

Now on to the beer!

Samuel Adams Boston Lager is best described as a complex, full-flavored, balanced German lager (technically a Vienna lager, I believe).  Brewed with 2-row pale malt, crystal specialty malt and Noble German hops (Tettnanger and Hallertauer Mittelfruh), this beer changed how I viewed lagers!

Samuel Adams Boston Lager

The beer pours a golden amber color (10 SRM) with a clear, fluffy white head and good lacing. This truly is a picturesque lager. On the nose, you can smell the malt sweetness with a bit of citrus / grapefruit from the hops.  The taste is similar to the smell, a balance of malt and hops.  There is a slight bitterness at the end to balance the initial malt sweetness and the bitterness tends to linger a bit after swallowing. You definitely get the "lager" taste that's often subdued in the traditional American light lagers. The beer has a medium body, is crisp and well carbonated, though it is close to being too carbonated for my tastes. Regardless, the beer is quite smooth. At 4.7% ABV,you don't get any real alcohol notes, perhaps masked by the fairly high carbonation, making it very drinkable.

Overall: This is a great beer that served as the poster child for the craft beer industry. It's a flavorful, drinkable session beer and is the perfect gateway beer for those who drink macro-brewed American light lagers and want to broaden their beer horizons. Cheers!

Rating: 8/10

Beer Primer Part 1 (Pardon the Beer Geekdom)

Before I get started with my regular posts, I wanted to briefly highlight some of the qualities of a beer that contribute to the overall beer drinking experience. Beer stimulates your senses; not just your taste buds, but the beer's appearance, aroma, and feel on your palate all play a role in what I'll be referring to as the "beer experience." Throughout my posts, I will be using some beer jargon and wanted to provide this background information up front. Surely anyone can drink a beer and say whether or not they like it, but as any wine connoisseur will tell you, understanding the different attributes of a fine wine enhances your appreciation of it. Though beer is not often treated like wine, I contend that beer can be just as complex as wine and deserves to be treated as such. I may get a little technical, so please pardon my beer geekdom!

What is beer?

At the most basic level, beer is simply water, grains (typically barley), hops, and yeast. That's all that is needed to produce the wonderful flavors and aromas of beer. In this post, I'll discuss the role of malted barley in beer and discuss the other ingredients in a later post.

Interesting Fact: The Bavarian "Reinheitsgebot" law (or "purity order") of 1516 mandated that beer can only contain water, barley, and hops.  Yeast was later added to law once microbiologists discovered in the 1800s that it was yeast that fermented beer. Thank you, Louis Pasteur. Some version of this law still exists in Germany today, a likely topic of another post in the future.

Malted Barley

Malted barley (aka malt) provides the foundation for beer. (Note: other grains such as wheat, sorghum, oats, rice, and corn can be used depending on the style but barley remains the primary beer grain).  Barley, a cereal grain, contains starches and proteins that the brewer uses to create the beer's flavor profile.  Before the barley can be used in beer, it first has to be malted, a process involving varying applications of wetting, drying, and heating the grain.  Malting  activates the enzymes in the barley that will convert the starch to sugars (in a brewing process called mashing), that can then be converted to alcohol and CO2 by the yeast.  Malt can is usually categorized as either base malts, which provide the majority of the fermentable sugars, and specialty malts that provide more complex flavors and colors depending on the malt used.

The malt plays a huge factor in the beer experience.  First, it is the primary source of color for the beer and influences the beer's head retention (the amount and color of foam on top of the beer). Beer color is often scaled by a measure known as the Standard Reference Method (SRM). The scale, seen below, is a measure of how much light is attenuated through beer, or in other words, how light or dark it is.  Small SRM values correspond with light beers like light lagers (2-3 SRM) and pale ales (6-8 SRM) while larger numbers correspond with dark beers such as stouts (20-30 SRM) and porters (30+ SRM).

SRM Beer Color Scale
2	3	6	8	10	13	17	20	24	29	35	40+

Eating and drinking is as much a visual experience as it is tasting one.  Your eyes provide your brain with the first impression of what you are about to consume.  When you see a well-poured glass of light beer with a light, fluffy head, your mind will have preconceived notions of what to expect when you drink it.  How the taste matches the visual (or doesn't match in some cases) the visual, plays into the overall experience in drinking a beer.

Soapbox Rant: Please drink your beer in a glass for the fullest experience!  Drinking from a bottle or can masks the beer from your eyes and keeps the aromas from your nose, which plays an immense role in how you perceive taste.  If you don't have a glass, even a cheap plastic Solo cup would be preferable to the bottle/can.  Time to step off my soapbox with pint glass in hand!

The malt also provides a lot of aromas and flavors to the beer.  Depending on the style of beer, you may get sweet malty notes, especially if the malt has a lot of unfermentable sugars.  The use of some dark (more roasted) specialty malts will give the beer more of nutty, chocolate, coffee, and/or roasted aroma and flavor.    The malt also affects the body (or viscosity) and mouthfeel of the beer, that is how it feels in your mouth.  Malt can provide proteins and other carbohydrates that can influence whether the beer feels thin and watery, heavy and chewy, or something in between.  Lastly, since malt also provides the yeast the fermentable sugars, the malt directly contributes to how much alcohol is in the beer, which can definitely affect the beer's taste and mouthfeel.

That's enough beer geekdom for now.  Look, smell, taste, and feel your beer and enjoy!

My New Beers Resolution

Hello, interwebs. Welcome to my new beers resolution. "Your new what!?" you may ask?  My new beers resolution. Inspired by my friend Ben, who kicked off his new beers resolution in 2009 (see link at the bottom of this post), and my burgeoning interest in drinking, brewing, and learning about good beer, I've decided to share my beer experiences in 2013 and beyond! Throughout the year, I will be trying out different beers and sharing with you my impressions of the brew along with some background information on the beer, the style, and/or the brewer.  Every beer has a story to tell and I'm here to share mine with you!

Though a true new beers resolution would have me drinking a beer a day, I have neither the time nor the disposable income for such an endeavor. Rather I'm aiming for roughly 100 beers for the year (or about two a week). I will try to mix in some lesser known brews along with those that you can readily find in your local grocery or beer store. I hope you will find it as entertaining and informative as I will.  Please subscribe, comment, and join me in talking about beer.  Beer, after all, is a social drink!  Cheers!


Ben's New Beer's Resolution blog can be found here. Though its no longer active, there's a lot of good information there.  Thank you for the inspiration!