Samuel Adams Norse Legend Sahti

Brewed By: Boston Beer Company in Boston, Massachusetts 
Purchased: 22oz bottle from Sam Adam's Small Batch Collection "gift set" [Batch No. 2]; 2012
Style/ABV: Sahti, 7.0%

Reported IBUs: 16

Tonight I'm looking at Sam Adam's take on a "Sahti." Sahti is a traditional beer from Finaland, which is made from a variety of grains, and then flavored (traditionally) with juniper berries. Traditionally, the mash was filtered through juniper twigs through a trough-shaped tun (called a kuurna). The style is a farmhouse ale with roots in Finland, dating back to the 1500s. According to Sam Adams, legend is that barrels of Sahti were found on Viking ships off the coast of Norway. Sahti is considered to be turbid -- or thick with suspended matter -- because the wort is not boiled after lautering, so loads of proteins are left in the body. In some regards, Sahti is comparable to a German Hefeweizen, and Sahti even features banana flavors thanks to the production of isoamyl acetate by the yeast. However, this beer can, and has been known, to pick up some wild yeast, giving it tartness.

With that said, 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.

If you roll over to the Norse Legend page, you can read more about Sahti, and see how Sam Adams went about making this beer. Rather than using a kuurna, the brewery aged this beer on a bed of juniper berries, which "impart an herbal, woodsy, and fresh evergreen character." Clocking in at 7.0% ABV, and packing 16 IBUs, this beer rounds out at 235 calories per 12oz serving. Brewed with Hallertau Mittelfrueh Noble hops, pale malt, rye malt, and special B and aromatic malts, and juniper berries, this beer is described as spicy from the rye, hoppy with evergreen, and citrusy from the juniper. Let's glass this up.

Samuel Adams Norse Legend Sahti

In low light, this beer pours a copper color, with one to two finger's worth of tan/copper colored head. In bright light, this beer is an orange/amber color, with hints of purple/brown. The head is quite foamy and dense (ala a Hefeweizen), and has a copper/brown hue in bright light. There's a lot of carbonation streaming upwards in this, in the form of small to mid-sized bubbles. And...this is totally transparent and totally filtered. I'm not even going to rant about this fact, other than to say I find it disappointing that they decided to filter this. Would you filter a Hefeweizen? The dense, protein fueled head is clinging, and sustaining nicely....

The aroma here is not bad, with juniper berries, berries, and tea-like herbal aromas crackin' like pistachios  There's underlying malt sweetness with some honey, brown bread, and a touch of cereal graininess. There's maybe some watery raisin with cardboard. There's maybe a hint of minty hop, but it's more like herbal tea.

Fortunately, the taste improves upon the appearance and nose. This reminds me of both tea and wine at the same time, and I would love to try a version of Sahti brewed with wild yeast. I'm getting a lot of tea notes up front, including sweet tea, Lipton Iced tea, herbal tea with raspberry, tea with berries, and big juniper berry notes. There's definitely a hint of mint or evergreen within the herbal tea flavor. I'm also reminded of my grandma's fairly ghetto home-made wine. Often brewed with various fruits, or things like dandelions, it was always too sweet, and never tasted complete. You get big sweetness on the back end, with honey, dandelions, and sugary malt body. At 7.0% ABV, the malts can't run or hide. There's like a hint of wood, but it's so subtle it's hard to tell if I'm not just filling in the gaps.

I'm not saying this is a mess, but they're doing this wrong. This is pretty much a one-trick pony (when it shouldn't be), with tea, juniper, evergreen rape, and then sugary, raisin sugar, dandelion sugar, cakey/honey sugar rape on the back end. This is medium-full to full, sticky sweet, with anorexic carbonation. Palate depth is good, complexity is not so much. Up front: tea, juniper, evergreen; mid palate is more evergreen and tea with hints of crappy, unfermented wine; back end is birthday cake levels of sweetness. Hints of wood are largely a no-show.

Rating: Below-Average

I'm feeling a Light Below-Average here. I was leaning towards Average  but I don't know. The finish is pretty sticky, and I wish I was getting more herbal/juniper, and where is dat citrus? Yo. Sam Adams, a word, please. I like tea, I like wine. I like juniper berries, and I like wood. I also like unfiltered traditional ales...also, what's up with some of your higher gravity beers veering into sugary la-la land? Your Imperial White, Double Bock, and Wee Heavy all kind of do similar things. Where's that patent banana? And the unfiltered fun? Or the allure of wild yeast? Aging a beer on juniper beers, evidently, does not a Sahti make. So that's the beef. As far as pairing this...the herbal/tea thing would go well with rustic food, like chicken and potatoes, sausage, a stew, or even a rustic soup. All things considered, a 22oz bottle of this stuff is around 6 or 7 bucks. 

Random Thought: Congrats to the Baltimore Flaccos on their victory.