Samuel Adams Black Lager

Brewed By: Boston Beer Company in Boston, Massachusetts
Purchased: Single bottle (12oz) from Sam Adam's Harvest fall mix-pack purchased in Chicago, IL; 2011
Style/ABV: Schwarzbier, 4.9%

It's Sunday, or football and beer day. So what better time to review another beer from the Sam Adam's Harvest fall mix-pack. Tonight I'm reviewing their Black Lager. The Sam Adam's website does a good job describing the Schwarzbier style. Schwarzbier literally means "black beer," and is a traditional German style of beer that uses bottom fermenting lager yeast. Schwarzbier utilizes darkened, roasted malt as a foundation for the beer's color and body. It is a dark lager, so it should be a clean and smooth beer while still having a good malt profile.

According to Sam Adam's website, this beer packs 19 IBUs, uses two varieties of Noble hops, and is brewed with Samuel Adam's lager yeast. This is a year-round offering, but seems appropriate for Autumn being somewhat malt-forward. Speaking of malt, this beer uses five types of malts including Weyermann dehusked Carafa malts. The Carafa malts intensify the aroma and color of dark beers; I wonder if this is the malt that contributes the subtle chocolate notes reviewers report in this beer. I guess we will find out, eh? 

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The pour reveals something spot-on with the BJCP's suggested description. This is a fairly carbonated, soda-dark beer, with a 2-finger head that dissolves pretty quickly but leaves a good centimeter or so of coating. The beer is not really black, more like soda dark-brown, with lots of ruby red highlights when you hold the beer up to light. In lower light this might look like a stout or a porter, but it's quite thin. The body looks to be filtered and would be transparent if it wasn't so dark. The head is tan and medium-thick and dissolves into that nice coating which hangs around the duration.

This is standard stuff, but it actually looks a little better than the Guinness Black Lager and the head is hanging around for longer.

Samuel Adams Black Lager

The aroma isn't huge, but there are malts and lager yeasts on the nose. Definite lager yeast notes, SURPRISINGLY some slight smokiness, some caramel and toast, pulls towards chocolate, and definite hints of noble hop notes that are perfume-like, floral and even citrus-orange, but really subtle and hard to place. There's a coffee-roast note as well.

The taste is malty sweet, with lots of interesting pulls towards smoke, chocolate, roasted notes and toasted bread. The beer has a clean yeast profile, and drinks smooth despite having a slightly sticky or dense profile. I'm not picking up on a ton of bitterness, but there seems to be a fresh Noble hop note towards the middle or back.

Rating: Above-Average

Score: 79%

 

Not very complex, this beer is about the big sweet malts with hints of smoke and chocolate. Hints of Noble hops pop up but they are pretty hard to place. The mouthfeel is on the heavy side of light, or the light side of medium; take your pick. There is moderate carbonation, the beer drinks pretty smooth, but there is a slight denseness to the body. The beer has medium depth on the palate; but this isn't very complex and it seems sort of light or watery.

The front of the palate is roasty, toast, smokey, sweet malt and chocolate. The middle rolls into some more roasted malts with some drying. The back end continues the roasted malt with more drying. You get some flashes of hops on the back-end and some lingering chocolate afterthoughts.

Denser and more flavorful than the Guinness Black Lager. This is a solid execution of the style, if not moving beyond the baseline with some good chocolate aftertaste. This is available year-round and does come in 6-packs. I would pick this up over the Guinness Black Lager, and this is probably priced about the same if not cheaper (Guinness stuff is really expensive...). 

Worth trying if you are in the mood for a dark lager-style beer. This is also an okay Autumn beer, so I'm happy to see it included in the Harvest mix-pack.