Winter Warmers, Pt I

I had an opportunity to try the selected beers in the Sam Adams Winter Classics mixed pack at the recent Samuel Adams Utopias dinner at Monk’s Kettle; a novel approach to present the beers to people who tend to skip over offerings from the Boston Beer Co.

Utopias is the strongest beer in the world, er, it was until quite recently. But calling it beer in any but one sense of the word—Reinheitsgebot-wise, flavor-wise, price-wise—is stretching it except for the fact that it’s made by brewers in a brewery. And I suppose that’s founder Jim Koch’s whole point—stretching it. But while the media-invite-only attendees were greeting with the sight of a shiny, golden ceramic bottle in the shape of a brew kettle, tasting it would have to wait. Instead, we were greeted with Sammy Winter Lager, a ruby-brown nicely-spiced lager. Cinnamon?

To show off the Coastal Wheat—certainly a summery ale unbefitting of a holiday sampler unless the point is that Californians are generally treated to warm weather—it was paired with arugula salad with mandarin orange. The White beer features three different lemon peels from three distinct regions in California “from Eureka to Yuma.” It’s a good beer, but looking forward to pairing a salad like this, topped with black pepper, with their upcoming Longshot Lemon-Pepper Saison. 

The second course featured pork tenderloin marinated in the Holiday Porter (meaning we ate it, but did not get to drink it, and it sounds great) alongside a bacon and Brussels sprout hash, alongside apple sauce made with the Cranberry Lambic (again, eating it but not getting to drink it). The beer pairing this time was Old Fezziwig Ale, the closest to a true winter warmer as it’s brewed with orange peel, cinnamon, and ginger, but still falls shy of reaching 6% ABV. The faint hop character comes from sparce German hops, as it was disclosed that Koch hates American hops. No big surprise there. The Holiday Classic is the only package in which the above three beers are available.

The main course was tournedos of beef tenderloin, which was cooked a little blue for my taste, but was outshone nonetheless by what goes down as the best side I’ve ever had—savory sage bread pudding. Hyperbole? The only way to prove it is for Monk’s Kettle chef Kevin Kroger to make this a staple. Please, Kevin, prove me right. For this pairing, we were poured the flagship Sammy Boston Lager, itself not a staple at the gastropub.

And for dessert, a fantastic pear-walnut strudel was paired with Double Bock (9.5%) and further ameliorated by the strudel being served in a pool of doppelbock caramel. The beer features half a pound of malt per 12-oz. bottle, so I don’t need to detail how rich and sweet it is. As my neighboring writer/diner remarked, “It’s nice to not have diabetes.”

But then the real dessert came out. A snifter of Samuel Adams Triple Bock was proffered as an amuse bouche. This beer was brewed in 1993, bottled in 1994, and can sometimes still be found and enjoyed in 2009. The nose starts out fudgey, segues into molasses, then peters off into sherry and balsamic. The taste follows suit building from hot chocolate (with the heat coming from the 18% alcohol) to slightly acetic leatheriness. The mouthfeel is velvety smooth with no carbonation or burn.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a sweet tooth, but I preferred the taste to the star of the evening, Utopias, sampling it but for the second time in four years. The flashy star among the entire Sam Adams lineup is the one they release just once every two years (with the 2011 version already Utopianizing in barrels today), beginning in 2003. This year’s offering is redolent of sherry, cognac, and brandy, owing to the fact it is a blend of high-gravity beers that brewers feed a steady diet of maple syrup which then rest for ages in Spanish Sherry, Portuguese Muscatel, and, uh, Scottish Scotch barrels, and others selected by their in-house wood hunter. This dark amber digestif is the mind-blower they were aiming for. But again, at 27% ABV and a retail price of $150-199 (and that’s before it hits the secondary market), is it beer? Feel free to drain the piggy bank if you can find it (try BevMo) and decide for yourself.

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© 2009 by Brian Yaeger