Samuel Adams Merry Mischief Gingerbread Stout

Brewed By: Boston Beer Company in Boston, Massachusetts 
Purchased: 22oz bottle from Sam Adam's Small Batch Collection "gift set" [Batch No. 1]; 2012
Style/ABV: Spice/Herb/Vegetable (Stout), 9.0%

Reported IBUs: 25

Continuing with the Sam Adam's Small Batch Collection series, I felt compelled to crack open a wintry beer to wrap up the night. There's no particular reason. In fact, it was sleeting and icing yesterday, and today is unseasonably warm with rain. It's supposed to be in the 60s tomorrow, with thunderstorms. I guess I should be drinking a warm-weather beer, but I'm feeling that Christmas spirit. Maybe it's because I just watched Die Hard 2. Who knows. About Sam Adams:

Samuel Adams was founded in 1984 by Jim Koch, and currently the Boston Beer Company is the largest American-owned beer company in the United States. Sam Adams is also the largest craft brewer in America, with over a million barrels of beer being produced annually. You can check out the Sam Adam's website for more info.

Today's beer, The Merry Mischief, is a big, spiced-up, Stout. This beer is described as a "rich dark gingerbread stout," with aromas of the holidays, including cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, & ginger. This beer has a strong Stout base, and is then layered with spices. Clocking in at 9.0% ABV, and packing 25 IBUs, this beer is brewed with pale, wheat, Special B, roasted barley, and flaked oat malts. This beer uses East Kent Goldings and Fuggles hops, and is fermented with ale yeast. In addition to the malts and hops, this beer features cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Let's glass this up, and see how it stacks up.

Samuel Adams Merry Mischief

I'm a little surprised, this one pours pretty legit. In low light, this beer has an impressively dark black body, with just hints of brown on the edges (it's very cola-esque). This one poured with 3-finger's worth of dense, coffee/tan-colored head. The head is creamy and thick. In bright light, the beer is still pretty dark, but you catch hints of ruby red/brown on the edges. Again, it's very cola-esque. You can see nice carbonation in a stream of tiny bubbles, and the head is a really nice coffee color. The head is maintaining nicely, and leaving some clingy lacing. Given how much jerking I'm doing about this beer's appearance, it's safe to say I like it.

The aroma instantly reminds me of Southern Tier's 2XMAS. I'm getting a ton of ginger, gingerbread, mulled wine, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, and gingery orange. I'm getting a hint of roast, and maybe a dash of meat; there's also some underlying booze on this beer's aroma (elusive raisins, port wine, cognac). There's also hints of graham cracker and gingerbread cookies. Very nice and complex on the nose...hopefully it follows through in the taste...

This is really rich and sweet, and quite smooth. The flaked oats did good things to this beer. You get big ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg up front, all accompanied with big graham cracker notes. It's like biting into a gingerbread pie. The malts just coat your tongue, followed by ginger tannins and assertive ginger, hints of mild hops, and mulled wine. The carbonation is lazy and laid back, and you get big malts in the back, with hints of chocolate, cream, molasses/caramel, and just super fucking smooth Oatmeal Stout-esque softness. There are some hints of roast, and lots of lingering booze complexity on the back end. The back end is creamy and smooth, and warming. You get lingering cinnamon and ginger in the back, and with the heat, it creates a really pleasant and warming feeling in your chest/tummy.

This is sooooo smooth. So smooth. This is in Sweet Stout or Oatmeal Stout territory, with lazy, unassertive carbonation. At 9.0% ABV, this is drinkable, but it fills the gap nicely; you want to sip this. This is medium-full to full bodied, and rounds out with a malty, spicy, and boozy finish. The finish is also slightly sticky and sweet. Palate depth is surprisingly good, and complexity is very high. Technically, this isn't really a straight up Stout. This is a Spice/Herb/Vegetable beer, or a Christmas/Winter Spiced beer. Having said that....nutmeg, ginger, graham cracker, molasses, and malt sweetness hit you up front; mid palate rolls into some fruity flavors, hop bitterness, ginger; the back end is malt sweetness, hints of oats, chocolate, molasses, cream; the finish is spicy and boozy. 

Rating: Above-Average

I'm feeling a Strong Above-Average on...possibly approaching that Divine Brew. This beer is basically a Spiced/Herb/Vegetable beer taken to the max, using a Stout base. Why not that Divine Brew rating? Mostly because I'm a pussy, and the mulled spices weigh heavy on me over time. This one might be a bit much in the 22oz format, so grab a friend. I also wonder how this beer would taste if the spices were dialed down from 11 to 10, and the Stout base was amped up from 7 or 8 to 10. Nevertheless, this beer is a huge surprise. It's REALLY good. It accomplishes what it (probably) sets out to accomplish very well. I would happily reach for this beer come Christmas time, and this beer is basically Christmas in a bottle (/sigh, it's almost February). Food pairings: pot roast, beef roast, spiced turkey, spiced/glazed ham, Christmas desserts, sweat potato soup, any holiday pie, Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner, stuffing, etc.. You can grab a bottle of this for around 7-9 dollars. It's a steal. Grab one.

Random Thought: It's thundering outside, and it's supposed to reach 60...and then in two days we are supposed to be back into the teens. That's Chicago for you.