Samuel Adams Triple Bock
Samuel Adams (Boston Beer Company)

 

1997 batch ~29 years old. The entire inside of the bottle is caked with sediment. Cork had to be carefully extracted in pieces. Poured into a snifter. Started at cellar temp and warmed from there.

Look: Dark brown with some ruby tone. Zero head as expected.

Smell: Heavy dried fruit, fig, prune. Maple and bourbon.

Taste: Very complex. Vinous dried cherry, fig, and caramel gives way to bitter chocolate. Subtle oak and maple. Intense black licorice comes out as it warms. Sweet with some well integrated alcohol burn.

Feel: Oily thick. Not as sticky as many modern 'extreme' beers. Still, but it wasn't supposed to be carbonated.

Overall: Very good. Better than I remember it, although it has been many years. I can see how some might get soy sauce but that is selling it short imo. Maybe there is bottle variation after so long though.

RB transfer

 

 

 

 

It's 2023, and I still have an entire case of the 1994 "vintage" Sam Adams Triple Bock. I loved it when I first tasted it, and I put away a case as an investment. Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to sell it with all of the regulations surrounding the sale (even private sale) of beer.

Dark Caramel gives way to warm notes of barrel aged smoothness. Unexpected reddish notes, not dark as one might expect. Fermented cherries and a medium dark chocolate notes on front of tongue. Velvet syrupy notes as it swishes the mouth, with a feeling of an aged Madeira wine. Some say it's like a Port wine, but this is much deeper, much smoother. This is a complex, sweet beer meant to be sipped and savored, very slowly. It starts out as one beer experience, but over the course of 20 minutes (give yourself this amount of time to fully enjoy it), it will lead you to an entirely different experience.

Final notes: Notes of stone fruit in here. Strong and proud. Dark, caramel and brown butter. Aged Cherries. Medium Dark Chocolate. Warming, like an old leather-clad library with a roaring fireplace. The beer that started it all. Madiera and old Oak.

'94: 4.5/4.5/4.5/4.5/4.5
'97: 4.25/3/1.5/2/2

1994 vintage, still great.
Dark brown appearance with a sparse tan head that recedes slowly to a collar, low retention, no lacing. Maple, whiskey, leather, tobacco. Moderate to light body, light carbonation likely due to age.

 

 

 

A friend had a bottle of 1994 vintage had been previously opened and recorked some time back, so that's out there.

That it poured a deep reddish-blown, almost black color. The aroma is richly sweet, like a concentrated tincture of dried cherries. The flavor is similar with lots of port wine character - dried cherry and prunes, leather and a bit of tobacco and molasses in the finish. Feel is dense and syrup-like, smooth and not bitter at all - again, like a tawny port. The alcohol was very present but not burning. I am sure this has lost some of its original character after all these years and having been opened before, but reading others here it appears to have held up very well. It was an honor to try such a legend.

I am giving it all fours as I have no idea if this is what the beer is supposed to be like. I enjoyed it enough to warrant a 4.

Purchased this 1995 Brew Reserve new for $3.19. Then it sat quietly and somewhat lost in a 50-degree Cellar for 25 years.

A bright ruby edge tops the opaque purplish black brew. Smell is a nice alcoholic prune juice that develops into much more. Taste is like and as sweet as prune juice with a tutti frutti blend of candy sugar, dried fruits, cherries, banana, a bit of grapefruit and some nice big bitterness growing to give balance. Feel is rich and creamy.

Enjoyed this more than expected when sipped quite slowly. Certainly a huge overly sweet brew that I find an exotic trip.

I am probably the largest single consumer of Sam Adams Triple Bock. My all 5 rating is a little bias. I loved every single bottle that I drank. Reason I claim to be the largest single consumer. Is my friend owned a restaurant/bar in Ventura, California. The restaurant was told that they bought more cases then anybody in the tri-county (Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara county) area. My friend bought (I paid my friend for all the cases) every case and bottle was only for me. The wholesale price was $76.90 from Lagomarsino Distributor. I should have bought the last case that Lagomarsino had.