Update 4/11/08:  Just thought I’d let my readers know that there has been a recall on certain Sam Adams bottles with the number "N35" on the bottom of them.  Apparently these bottle may have glass fragments in them.  The very bottle you see in this review has that lettering on it and I drank it from start to finish (yikes).  Nothing has happened to me thus far, but I wanted to make sure to bring this to everyone’s attention.  Don’t look for any further reviews of Sam Adam’s beer on this site, as I’ll be avoiding all of their beer for some time.  Be careful everyone!

Last weekend, a good friend of mine had informed me that he was going to pick up a case of Samuel Adams White Ale.  He had mentioned that he had tried this beer on tap and was quite impressed with the result.  However upon drinking the same beer from the bottle, he had had found that it wasn’t nearly as good as he originally thought.  In fact, he offered to give me a six pack of the beer in question and had asked me to review it on my blog.  Never a man to turn down a six pack of beer, I accepted this gracious offer and thus here is my review of Sam Adams White Ale:

First off, let me take some time to say a few things about Sam Adams beer.  Personally, I’m on the fence about this brewery.  I’ve moderately enjoyed nearly all of the beers I’ve had from them, including their Summer Ale, Winter Lager, and their flagship Boston Lager beer.  However, with all of them I could only sit through two or three beers at a time before I got tired of them. There just wasn’t a whole lot of substance there.  Will this beer have the same result?  Considering that I’ve have tried all of their seasonal beers (including their Ocotberfest beer which I didn’t care for at all), I guess it’s only natural that I try their Spring beer as well which the White Ale is geared towards.

This beer pours with a very thin head on top and a with a cloudy orange body.  You also see a nice amount of bubbles floating to the surface that go nicely with the hazy look that’s common with your typical unfiltered wheat beers.  The smell of the beer is citrus-like in nature with hints of spices, but overall the aroma is kind of weak.  This is pretty much what I expected thus far from this beer, but how does this stuff taste?  Quite simply put, the taste is sub-par for a wheat beer.  You get the yeast-like taste and the flavor of various spices and even a pepper-like finish, but none of this is very strong or memorable.  I wasn’t expecting anything complex and thrilling from this Spring beer, but at least give me SOMETHING to work with.  I should also note that subsequent sips from this beer still resulted in a big bowl of "meh" as well.

Is this the right beer for the Spring season?  I guess if this is the only wheat beer around it might be a contender.  It does go down somewhat easily though, which increases the drinkability factor and the 5.2% ABV is just right.  However, if there’s a Hoegaarden available, I’d go with that first and keep Sam Adams White Ale as an after thought.

Taste: Below Average (for a wheat beer)

Smell: Average

Drinkability: Average

Final Words:

Sam Adams continues its streak as a brewery that’s just slightly over mediocrity in my book.  If I could sum up this beer in one sentence, it would probably be: "Think of drinking a Blue Moon with less flavor and perhaps more water and you’d have Sam Adams White Ale".  Is this beer horrible?  Not quite, but I would probably never had more than one if I didn’t receive that free six pack.  Despite the fact that Boston Beer Company(Sam Adams) is the biggest "craft" brewer in America, they need to step their game up a bit with this one.  Oh well, I’m still going drink the rest of that six pack any fucking way.  

View the Pour:

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