Sam Adams Summer Ale...

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Don't really care for it. Still have six bottles that I'm slowly drinking.
 
Weird, just goes to show the difference between y'all seasoned homebrew types and us poor noobies - we've been drinking the Summer Ale pretty steadily this year and thought it was the best of the summer ales we could get our hands on. Sierra Nevada's really disappointed me.
 
I
Clann said:
I usued to love it but now... I dont know if my pallet or the recipe changed.
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I'm with you, I'm pretty sure the recipe changed. It used to be a decent summer beer, easy to drink when it's hot and almost sweet. Now, it's overly bitter and the pepper of the grains of paradise is over powering. Nasty stuff.
 
Honestly, the last good SA beer IMO was Cranberry Lambic. You used to be able to buy cases of it in the Fall, then they stopped that and it's only available in the sampler packs. So, to get 4 good beers, you gotta buy 20 crappy ones that all taste the same...over hopped with the exact same hops profile.
 
We've been through this a few times before. It's not the beer,it's what you're brewing & drinking that's changing how you perceive flavors that's making the difference. Not to mention,are they sub-contracting in different places to get enough brewed to keep up with demand? Different brewer,different beer. I like it myself. I like hoppy beers,I like malty beers,light ones & some dark ones. Sounds more to me like you're the ones that changed,moreso than the beer. It happens.
You start getting used to drinking big beers,then go back to something like summer ale,& you think it's bad beer. When in truth,you've gotten used to a crap ton of additions commercial brews don't always have. Especially compared to light summer beers.
 
Bleh, another bland offering from the Boston beer co. Not really a fan of any of their beers.

A tad off topic, but I think two of the better summer offerings this year are Brooklyn's Summer Ale and O'dell's St. Lupulin. The SN is decent too, but with so many better pilsners out there, I hardly drink it.
 
Union- I agree with that line of thought generally, but I'm almost certain the lemon profile in the summer ale has changed. It's really overpowering and distracting. I think Sam Adams is having consistency & quality control issues, the lager in bottles never seems to taste the same from month to month. The last six pack I bought also looked paler than it usually does.
 
Union - I could absolutely see how that would be the case, and drinking thick handcrafted beers could change how the MPDs are received on the palate, but honestly, for all of the green unconditioned beers I have tested in the past year or so, nothing brings out the 'yecch' in me more than this beer has. And I am a tried/true fan of malt liquor. As Rob said, the lemony essence (or maybe its the zesty grain of paradise, maybe a mix of the two) is too much; it just sits on the back of the tongue and lingers as a vapor in the gut. Very unpleasant ...and this is after a weekend of polishing off my house pale ale and clearing some hurricane high-gravity at a buddy's house.
 
Hhmmm, and I thought it was just me. I picked up a 12-pack based on the input from my nephew and then had to slap him for leading me astray. And then I promptly gave him the remaining 11. I like some of their beers but this wasn't one of them.
 
NordeastBrewer77 said:
Bleh, another bland offering from the Boston beer co. Not really a fan of any of their beers.

A tad off topic, but I think two of the better summer offerings this year are Brooklyn's Summer Ale and O'dell's St. Lupulin. The SN is decent too, but with so many better pilsners out there, I hardly drink it.
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x2 on the Brooklyn, it's always been a favorite. This year they're offering it in 12 packs of cans! :ban:
 
unionrdr said:
We've been through this a few times before. It's not the beer,it's what you're brewing & drinking that's changing how you perceive flavors that's making the difference. Not to mention,are they sub-contracting in different places to get enough brewed to keep up with demand? Different brewer,different beer. I like it myself. I like hoppy beers,I like malty beers,light ones & some dark ones. Sounds more to me like you're the ones that changed,moreso than the beer. It happens.
You start getting used to drinking big beers,then go back to something like summer ale,& you think it's bad beer. When in truth,you've gotten used to a crap ton of additions commercial brews don't always have. Especially compared to light summer beers.
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Agree!!
In fact, I was out last night and ordered a #9; after taking a clone recipe and revamping it a bit it's just not the same. I prefer mine. Don't we all tweak recipes to our personal preferences?? Ergo, we no longer "settle" for average or sometimes even satisfactory.
Once you go homebrew....you just can't go back!!!
:mug:
Sarah.
 
I thought it was pretty well understood that the Summer Ale recipe has changed. It took on a big change maybe 5-7 years ago. (It used to be a favorite, until the change) Then I think it has been tweaked. Pretty sure recipe was changed due to a sourcing problem, and they never regained the old flavor. I can find documentation of this no where on the interwebs, but I've heard that discussed a few times.

Also - Shipyard Summer beats Sam Summer by a mile, for those in a market with Shipyard. Shipyard Summar reminds me of what Sam Summer was....back when it was good.
 
Also unfortunately around Boston - Sam Adams is the seasonal beer for most bars. But 60% of those bars don't know what "cleaning a tap line" is, so it suffers from that as well.
 
After doing some research,& listening to you guys on this one in the past,I tweaked up a recipe. It was going to be a clone,but now I think it'll be left a bit different. Simple in it's construction,it should turn out quite well,if this heat wave ever dies down so she can brew it.
 
The wife and I went to dinner last night, decided to eat at the bar. We roll up and the bartender asked what we wanted to drink. My wife sees the Summer ale is on tap as the seasonal and the only offering other than Yuengling, swill, swill light and worse swill light. She orders one and I said, no, you don't want that. I tell her it's nowhere near as good as it used to be, so the bartender pours her and himself a taster. Both looked like the bitter beer face guy when trying it. The bartender said he hadn't had any of the Summer Ale yet this year and agreed, it was really bad.

"No wonder we've been getting so many of these sent back lately" was his answer. I really don't think it's us as brewers. Sam's is generally going downhill if you ask me.

Our Yinzling drafts were just fine.
 
I'm surprised to hear its still on tap where you guys are drinking. I work for a beer distributor in N.C. and we have been hooking up Octoberfest at all the bars. Makes no sense to me its been like 90-100 degrees in Raleigh everyday and they pull summer ale off the shelves??? Oh well my favorite Sam seasonal is Octoberfest so I guess it doesn't bother me to much. If Sam summer is bad or not its sad to see whole pallets of summer cases waiting to be sent back to the brewery. Not sure what they do with it but I'd imagine it gets dumped...
 

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