Samuel Adams: What’s on Tap
We hope that your holidays were enjoyable and your New Years celebrations everything you expected. For us the perfect New Year’s Eve is the right mix of good friends, the right atmosphere and a good supply of Samuel Adams® beers. Truth be told, that sounds like a recipe for success on any eve.
2007 was a great year for us here at the brewery. We released the first new bottles of Samuel Adams Utopias® in more than two years. We added another new style to the ever expanding family of Samuel Adams beers with our Samuel Adams® Honey Porter. We celebrated the contribution of the highest quality hops to our brews with the release of Samuel Adams® Hallertau Imperial Pilsner. And there was so much more.
2008 promises to be equally as action packed. Once again you will have the chance to brew and have your creation nationally distributed in the 2008 Longshot competition. You can also cast your vote and help decide the next Beer Lovers ChoiceTM winner. And we have a few other surprises in store as well.
In this first WOT installment of 2008 we’re going to introduce our ’07 Beer Lovers Choice winner, show off the new Longshot® brews, give you some food pairing suggestions for the upcoming Big Game and give some props to our beloved spring seasonal – Samuel Adams® White Ale – because, believe it or not, spring will be here before you know it.
Cheers!
Here in Boston we are in the middle of the cold winter season. There are no better brews to warm the cockles of our hearts than big full flavored brews. By that we mean beers that will knock your socks off with complexity and flavor and they just might have an extra kick to them. So if you are in the mood for a few unique brews feel free to stop by the brewery. Be sure to RSVP below!
- What: Samuel Adams® Open House – BIG Brews
- When: Thursday, January 24th – 5pm to 8pm
- Where: Samuel Adams® Boston Brewery
30 Germania Street
MBTA Orange Line to Stony Brook Station
Over 42,000 people tasted and cast their votes in our 2007 Beer Lover’s Choice contest. All across the nation people had a chance to decide the next Samuel Adams style. They tasted and chose between an Irish Red and a Dunkelweizen. It came down to the wire but, in the tradition of other well known Irish Reds like Conan O’Brien, starting this month we are proud to welcome Samuel Adams® Irish Red to the Samuel Adams® Brewmaster’s Collection.
Originally brewed in Ireland in 1710 in a town called Kilkenny, Irish Red Ales are ideal for warm, sunny days. Pale and caramel malts give the beer its rich, deep red color and distinctive caramel flavor. The sweetness of the malt is pleasantly balanced by a pronounced hop bitterness, and in turn, the beer finishes with a smooth, earthy note from the East Kent Goldings hops.
Samuel Adams Irish Red is available in its own 6-pack as well as featured in the Brewmaster’s Collection Variety 6-packs & 12-packs. Keep an eye out for it!
Perhaps your team won’t be playing in the Big Game on February 3 but we’ll bet you’ll watch it anyway (at the very least for the TV commercials). Well two things that go very well with the viewing experience are Samuel Adams beers and good food. Here are a few suggestions on how to enjoy them together.
Nachos – It definitely depends on what toppings you throw on, but Sam Adams Light® has the balance to match more of the toppings’ flavors without overpowering them. For a beer to help with those pesky jalapenos, try a Samuel Adams® Brown Ale or an even hoppier Samuel Adams® Boston Ale.
Buffalo Wings – The spiciness of the wings is going to determine which beer you choose. The maltiness of Sam Adams Light will match the sweeter sauces while Samuel Adams Boston Lager®’s strong noble hop flavor will handle the heat of the spicier sauces.
Bruschetta – Samuel Adams Boston Lager’s balance is what makes it pair well with this dish. The initial malt notes will match the flavor of the bread and the Noble hop finish will lift the heaviness of the oil and the acidity of the tomatoes. Samuel Adams® Winter Lager – with its robust malty, caramel, crisp finish – also pairs well with Bruschetta.
These are obviously just a few suggestions. For more Food & Beer pairing suggestions visit www.samueladams.com and go to the World of Beer. Then click on the Beer & Food section to start exploring. Enjoy!
The spirit of homebrewing lives strong at Samuel Adams. After all, Jim Koch brewed the first batch of Samuel Adams Boston Lager in his kitchen. Each spring all Samuel Adams employees get the opportunity to homebrew and submit their creations for fame and glory. Three finalists are chosen and their beers are poured at The Great American Beer FestivalTM in Denver where attendees vote for their favorite. The winner gets included in the Longshot package! So it’s quite obvious that we’re nuts about home brewing and that’s why we started our LongShot Contest in 1996.
Over 2000 beer enthusiasts submitted a homebrew to our 2007 LongShot Contest for a chance to be brewed and distributed by Samuel Adams. The competition was intense and we tasted a lot of really great beers (a tough job but somebody had to do it). In the end three beers were victorious and you can taste two of them starting next month!
Introducing…
These brews will be available in a 6-pack – 3 bottles each – starting in February.
The third winner was a Double IPA brewed by Mike McDole of California. When chosen as a winner, we anxiously anticipated its inclusion in the LongShot 6-pack. However, we are in the midst of a worldwide hops shortage this year and many of the seven varieties of hops in Mike’s recipe are literally sold out. We couldn’t find enough of several of these hops on the market at any price to brew his beer. While we presented Mike with a plan to brew his beer substituting in different hops this ultimately that would have been a very different beer. So we were delighted that Mike decided to wait until next year to have his beer brewed and included in the LongShot package. We’ve already started the hunt for hops for next season. Based on the sample brew that we’ve tasted, this is a beer worth waiting for!
If you want to have your beer brewed and distributed, keep an eye out for information on our 2008 LongShot Competition in February’s newsletter!
