Is Sam Adams going downhill?

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as1084

as1084

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Ok. For the past 3 or 4 years Sam Adams Octoberfest was my favorite beer. Whenever that time of the year would come around, I would stock up on their Octoberfest at Costco, and I am talking like 4 or 5 cases. Then I started with home brewing. When it came out last year, it wasn't as good as I remembered but I still found it pretty good and drank the cases I bought. Then this last fall, I only bought a 12 pack because I remembered its sub par taste from last years release. Well, I now find it undrinkable. I finished one bottle and gave the rest away. I then decided to try their Boston Lager and Winter Lager again and wasn't as impressed as I was 3 years ago. Is Sam Adams slacking or is it just because my palet is maturing since I got into home brewing and serious craft beer drinking? I'm sure it is mostly my palet maturing, but does anyone else notice a difference in Sam Adams quality over the last couple years? I think the popularity they gained over the last few years has really weakened their brewing efforts. Like I wont even touch Sam Adams anymore, unless I had to choose between it and BMC or something. What do you guys think?

FYI: I liked breweries like Stone and Rogue before I started home brewing and I still think their beers are excellent, which leads me to believe Sam Adams' QC is down the toilet now.
 
Recipes Change a bit over time. I dont know if you saw the Brew Masters episode where Dog Fish Head had to toss Half a Mill. worth of 120 down the drain because the yeast had changed to the point where the 120 did not taste like the 120 anymore. They had to go back and try to recreate the same 120 from the 2006 version in the end.

On Sam Adams I don't think their quality has gone down hill. They seem to be the same tween-er beer between the quality craft beer and the mega beers that they have always been, but I have never had high thoughts about any of their other beers outside of their Octoberfest myself. Not bad, but not a beer I would grab if I had other options. I believe their flavor profile has changed a bit over the past few years, but there could also be a number of factors causing their beer to be undrinkable. The chief reason I could think of is the possibility that their beer could be mishandled at some point from site to store in your area.
 
I don't believe that Sam Adams has gone downhill.

It's just that so many better beers are now available.

It's similar to when Sam Adams first hit the market, BMC suddenly seemed to drop in quality.
 
haha, not yet but I did I tivo it. That show is great! I'm going to be watching it tomorrow. Sam Adams Boston Lager was essentially my gateway beer into craft and micro beers. So back then I was pretty high on Sam Adams, but not anymore. To me, they are just a middle of the road brewery now, like you guys said. I was just curious if anybody was tasting the differences in quality that I was tasting. The beer was fresh, according to the month notched on the bottles and casing. Maybe they were stored in a room with a lot of light in the store I bought them from. Either way, I won't be drinking Sam Adams anymore, unless I have no better options. I guess whenever you like something, there is always something even better out there. I guess I didn't realize how average Sam Adams was compared to the rest of the craft beer world. Before I started drinking Sam Adams, I was a BMC drinker so anything better than that would have been liquid gold lol. Thanks for your input guys.
 
GoldMiner said:
I don't believe that Sam Adams has gone downhill.

It's just that so many better beers are now available.

It's similar to when Sam Adams first hit the market, BMC suddenly seemed to drop in quality.
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I agree. It's much more likely your tastes have changed than the QC of a multi-million dollar operation. They may have made some slight changes due to ingredient availability, but I know that my palette has definitely changed.
 
It's amazing how quickly your palette refines itself once you start brewing. I could give you a long list of beers that I thought were incredible 2 years ago that now I would dump.
 
It's hard to know how beer has changed from year to year. How do you compare? Do you keep a bottle lying around? Somehow I don't think the 1-year-old bottle of beer will be a good indicator. You could do tasting notes, but even then slight variations will be hard to track and may go unnoticed until they drift into being large variations. Even if you could somehow account for those variations, there's still the matter of how the beer is handled all the way from the brewery to your glass. It's at least as likely that mishandling is a culprit compared to recipe or yeast changes.

You basically just have to know your beer cold and have semi-recent previous batch examples to compare to. Sam Adams doesn't have that luxury in their seasonals. It seems to me that they change slightly from year to year whether by design or by accident, but what do I know? For the record, I usually enjoy Sam Adams Oktoberfest. I didn't enjoy it last year but enjoyed it again this year. That could be changing tastes but I imagine something affected last years batch that I did not care for. Once again, even that might just be mishandling but it might be a change in recipe or yeast character. There's no good way to tell. Whatever happened they seemed to have righted the ship for me this year.

I personally don't care for most of what Sam Adams sells. A lot of their stuff seems like a caricature of whatever they're going for. This year, I really enjoyed the Oktoberfest and the Noble Pils so that's two beers I like compared to the usual one. That's uphill IMHO.
 
As for the SA Oktoberfest, I thought this years batch didn't have the same malty finish that past years versions did. Since I didn't see anyone else complaining about it, I thought it was all in my head (or I do not properly remember the previous versions). As others have mentioned, ingredients do change and therefore the beers made from them change.

As for SA going downhill overall....I think their new(er) Noble Pils are Latitude IPAs are pretty darn good examples of the style!
 
I felt like the Oktoberfest was a little off this year. I think SA has contracted out a lot of their brewing to other breweries. The same recipe plus different equipment will produce different tasting beers.

Some of it probably is palette development though...
 
You went from drinking 5 cases a year to 1 bottle this year? hahaha Wow...
 
It goes the other way also. There are some beers that I love now that I had tasted before and didnt like them because the flavor was too strong. I wish I could still find some of the SA oktoberfest, that was my movie watching beer.
 
I agree that tastes do change but, the notion that a beer is "undrinkable" is well, assinine. barring very specific instances of a product being contaminated, staled, skunked, or otherwise seriously flawed.

I have only EVER had one beer that I literally could not drink that was not unintentionally flawed, Michelobe Ultra Pomegranit.
 
Was Sam Adams ever on a hill? Never did like their beers. But I'm the same way with Leinenkugels, another macro microbrew type like that. It pretty much took me from enjoying beer for the social entertainment to enjoying beer because, its pretty damn good. Hardly ever drink it anymore, but I'm pretty sure its me because whenever I start getting someone into 'good' beer I have them drink leine's and they usually like it a lot.
 
I found this years SA O'fest to be much better this year than last. But I only had it on tap; no bottles. I think I tasted some crystal malt in it, which isn't really to style, but I really enjoyed it. I preferred my own O'fest over theirs, but still, I thought it was better than some other commercial examples I had from breweries where I expected better.
 
Their Oktoberfest was cloying this year and almost undrinkable. I like Sam Adams but if I'm gonna spend $16.00 on a twelve pack, it won't be on them.
 
I have always hated Leine's. We used to buy it in college because it was cheaper than busch light. I guess it probably tasted ok, I don't really remember, but it wasn't a very good beer for trying to get hammered.

As far as Sam Adams, it is nice to hear I am not the only one. I used to think their beers were fairly decent but anymore it tastes like someone's first attempt at homebrew. I have a friend who loves everything they make and he told me the Oktoberfest was his favorite. I had it on tap and did not care for it at all. I'll take Hacker-Pschorr anyday.
 
Funny, I cant stand Sam Adams, never have, but the only beer they put out Id drink and like was this years Octoberfest.
 
I thought it was better this year... the october fest changes, as well as their other seasonals...

I Still HATE their wheat bears and fruit beers, everything else I'm usually ok with.
 
A few years ago I was into SA lager, before homebrewing, and thought it was the best beer ever, that and Newcastle. I've not had much if at all since I started brewing a year ago. I bought a 12 sample pack for a T-day trip to the inlaws. I did not enjoy it at all. This pack had a porter, stout, ale and lager and all seemed to share the same taste. There was some differences of course between the porter and lager for example, but at least part of the taste profile was very similar between all the beers. I still have 4-5 of them in my fridge that keep getting passed up for my homebrew and other craft beers. I had the Octoberfest a few months ago and ended up giving most of it to my neighbor for some eggs from his chickens.
 
I had a few Winters last night and they were pretty good. I did notice that the last Boston Lager I had tasted plasticy almost doughy and I could barely stomach it. I wanted to say that it was because I started brewing again recently after the HOT as Hell summer.
 
brew2enjoy said:
I agree, I always looked forward to the Winter Lager and it seems off this year.
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Me Three. Sam Adams Winter was one of my favorites that I used to look forward to around October. The Winter Lager used to be a strong wheat bock, which was awesome. Now its like a spiced lager of some kind. I was actually angry there were so many in my holiday brew pack from costco. I googled it, but nobody else seemed to notice, It's nice to see I wasn't the only one...
 
Leines cheaper than busch light? I'm not talking about Leines origional, I'd rather have busch light. I mean their real beers. Creamy dark, red, oktoberfest, honeyweiss, 1888 bock, big butt dopplebock, classic amber, fireside nut brown...mmmm. Im not even sure they sell the origional leines around here, and I live in Wisconsin.
 
Stellrbrewr said:
Leines cheaper than busch light? I'm not talking about Leines origional, I'd rather have busch light. I mean their real beers. Creamy dark, red, oktoberfest, honeyweiss, 1888 bock, big butt dopplebock, classic amber, fireside nut brown...mmmm. Im not even sure they sell the origional leines around here, and I live in Wisconsin.
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I think it was the original but my wife claims it was the red. I've had the honey weiss too and didn't care for that much either but that's not really one of my favorite styles anyway. I don't remember the exact price but everyone I knew drank it because it was so cheap. We bought cases of bottles for next to nothing from John's Grocer in Iowa City. That was 15 years ago and if I remember correctly most of my homebrew bottles when I started out were Leine's bottles. What do you think is their best beer? I'll give them another shot.
 
Leine's summer shandy is a great summer beer in my opinion. I will also say that the other beers they make are better than any of the BMCs beers.
 
There are styles of SA that I don't like, but I can't detect any fall off in the taste or quality of the ones I find tasty (Boston Lager, Black Lager, Winter Ale, Red Ale). I think it more likely that over the years it's the drinker's tastes that are likely to change. By and large, contemporary brewing methods are capable of producing a pretty uniform product, mas o menos.

Another reason is that I believe that the average beer preferred by many homebrewers nowadays is a much bigger beer than those produced by most mass-market brewers (and SA / Boston Brewing is one of those). This is going to affect how those beers are perceived.

Now if you really want a "sort of / might be" craft beer, just drink any of the Michelob offerings. I'll hand it to them, they've managed to brew a nice variety of beers that taste and look within style, but they're just right on the edge of being "not there." I tried a few of their sampler cases, about eight different kinds, and I'm done.
 
Sam Adams Summer Ale used to be one of my favorite beers. I would wait every year for it to come out and then I'd buy case after case of it. This year I had one six pack. It tasted like soap.

A beer I used to love was Goose Island Hex Nut Brown Ale. They must have changed it. It used to have a great brown ale flavor with a nutty finish. I moved to the south and couldn't get it any more. Then I had some last winter and it was terrible.

I'm like the OP though. Did the beer change or is it me?
 
Boston lager has always been my go to beer. If I am in the mood for a beer, boston lager will usually hit the spot (barring those times I am craving a stout/porter or something really hoppy and bitter).

IMO, boston lager has gotten better. I've been getting more consistently good bottles, and Noble Pils and Latitude 48 prove SA still trying trying to put out good brews. That said, I am planning a trip to boston to try their barrel room specials... they sound amazing!
 
No. If anything, they've improved.

Honestly, I think it might be Costco's problem. I bought a case of Boston Lager from them when I was visiting Florida and it was awful. I returned it and bought some from a gas station and it was the perfect brew I had always known it to be.

I even wrote an email expressing my dissatisfaction with the experience. I asked them if they change their brewing procedures or recipes in regards to region (which was a stretch) but I got a prompt email back stating they don't and that they apologized for the inconsistent distribution.

Then they sent me a free workshirt.
 
Is it possible that they ship the beer too green? I had a lager last night that I sat on a couple months and it seemed much better than I remembered the others from the 12 pack.

I also felt the octoberfest was better years ago. Last year I had two different tasting ones. One had an orange cap and another was blue. This year I didn't bother.
 
naughtyco said:
I even wrote an email expressing my dissatisfaction with the experience. I asked them if they change their brewing procedures or recipes in regards to region (which was a stretch) but I got a prompt email back stating they don't and that they apologized for the inconsistent distribution.

Then they sent me a free workshirt.
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That's awesome. lol. Maybe I should have complained too. Anyways, Sam Adams has been extremely inconsistent the last few years IMO. Whether it Sam Adams' fault or their retailers, I won't be drinking Sam Adams again until they get their act together.
 
I agree w/ a couple things here and I think its just ingredients fluctuation. The Octoberfest was too malty out of balance last year but has improved this year whereas the Winter Lager was the opposite, this year it isn't as good.
 
johnnyc said:
I agree w/ a couple things here and I think its just ingredients fluctuation. The Octoberfest was too malty out of balance last year but has improved this year whereas the Winter Lager was the opposite, this year it isn't as good.
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I agree with that.
 
I love that holiday porter that comes in the christmas pack but last year it was really bad so Im hoping it gets better this year.
 
I remember back in 1995 or so stocking up on the Octoberfest....as much as I could get my hands on. It was a different beer back then - maltier is about the best way I can describe it. Up until about 2000 or so the taste was the same and then it started to get less, well, malty ever year after.

Whenever it comes out I get that Pavlovian response and pick up a case. As of late though I've been disappointed with it. This past year I vowed it would be the last year; it's a decent beer but nowhere near what I remember it being.

Being local to where the company started I got to see the company evolve. There used to be six packs of the Double Bock and now they're upping the price and only putting four in. They're doing 18 to a case, all sorts of stuff. It's a different company to some degree. But I do believe that the mainstay products, the Lager and Ale are still quite good and have been consistent for a long time.

Back in 1997 I was in college and had to do a final project for a multimedia class. Seeing as it should be on something I know me and three other friends of mine did it on beer and asked The Boston Beer Co. if we could come down and shoot video and take stills at their HQ in Jamaica Plain. They enthusiastically granted us permission and kept the place open late for us to come in, get what we needed, take pics and even hang out with the brewers after we were done and sample some of the things they were working on.

After the semester was over I wrote them a nice thank you note for their help. They responded with a note from H.R. that when I graduated I should make it a point to send a resume over and let me know who I was.

Classy folks and good people.
 
I'm not a big BBC drinker in general, so I can't really make a comparison from year to year, but I thought their octoberfest this year was pretty good.
 
mchlhgn1 said:
Recipes Change a bit over time. I dont know if you saw the Brew Masters episode where Dog Fish Head had to toss Half a Mill. worth of 120 down the drain because the yeast had changed to the point where the 120 did not taste like the 120 anymore. They had to go back and try to recreate the same 120 from the 2006 version in the end.

On Sam Adams I don't think their quality has gone down hill. They seem to be the same tween-er beer between the quality craft beer and the mega beers that they have always been, but I have never had high thoughts about any of their other beers outside of their Octoberfest myself. Not bad, but not a beer I would grab if I had other options. I believe their flavor profile has changed a bit over the past few years, but there could also be a number of factors causing their beer to be undrinkable. The chief reason I could think of is the possibility that their beer could be mishandled at some point from site to store in your area.
Click to expand...

I tried a six pack here in Texas and it was not the same quality and flavor, it was watery. I first started drinking Sam Adams in California, always great. Now, I am not buying it again. Needs work or maybe they changed formula, but it really tasted like the other light soda water beers. Nearly poured it down the sink but cannot do it, but was offensive to drink.
 

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