Samuel Adams Winter Classics Variety (2015)

Saw this the other day, might pick up it to try it, love the variety, 6 different beers.

 

I still like Boston Lager, and it is their best selling beer. Why get rid of their money maker? Sierra Nevada is not going to drop the Pale Ale.

 

Oh I'm not saying it should be dropped or anything. It's just, as I said, kind of cute that it seems to always be around, even in things like holiday packs where it doesn't seemingly have any connection to the season.

 

Boston Lager is an extremely well made beer...why not support it?
Frankly, I often choose it on draft over other available craft brews...and frequently choose it over much of the locally made stuff in my area (most which generally pretty much pale by comparison with regard to overall quality).

 

I for one would buy more variety 12-packs if they didn't always include flagship brands such as Boston Lager and SNPA. I would love to see more variety in variety packs. Apparently that's too much to ask...but including 6 different beers like Sam Adams did in the Winter Classics 12-pack is still pretty awesome!

 

I wish they would bring back that maple porter. Perfect winter beer IMO. However I believe it was last seen in a Spring or Summer variety pack ??

 

I will buy more now that the count of beers is balanced in the pack. As I've said, I like Boston Lager and can get that anytime. I don't mind that their flagship is in the Winter Pack. Same thing if they were to put White Christmas back in. I feel like they got it right this year: equal quantities of their holiday beers plus the beer that made them what they are today. They put variety back in variety pack. I hope they do more of this with all of their packs in 2016.

 

I missed out on that one. I'm with you and hope it comes back too.

 

Damn I gotta check Sams Club. The Black and Brew was great last time they offered it in 2011/2012

 

Here's what the Sam Adams representative who was helping me said in regards to Boston Lager being included in their variety packs:

Samuel Adams Boston Lager was first brewed in 1984 by our founder and brewer, Jim Koch. Back then, full-flavored beers with high-quality ingredients did not exist. Shortly after it was brewed, it won a gold medal in the Consumer Preference Category at the Great American beer Festival in Denver, Colorado. We include Samuel Adams Boston Lager because it’s a great beer, and also because it is the beer that helped to start the craft beer revolution.

We’re constantly innovating and creating new beers; our variety packs consist of a nice mixture between classics and new beers from our brewers. We try to include beers that will appeal to a wide range of preferences. Including Boston Lager in our variety packs is paying homage to the flagship beer that started it all and helped shape the craft beer industry into what it is today.

 

Sparkling Ale was delicious

 

So why isn't it in the "IPA Hopology" variety pack pictured above?

Sure, it's not an IPA/IPL, but it's also not a "Winter Classic".

 

has anyone noticed if the Sparkling Ale has a k in a star a.k.a Star-K (kosher certification) on the label like many Sam Adam beers have?

 

Amen brother. I've been wanting them to sell Old Fezziwig in sixers for years. My favorite winter warmer.

 

Wow, now in the 30 years since BBC released SABL (yeah, 30 - while he may have brewed the first batch in '84 "in his kitchen" , the Pittsburgh Brewing Co. contract-brewed Boston Lager "debuted" in local Boston bars on April 12, 1985, according to an AP wire service story at the time) I've read numerous claims, boasts and typical promotional puffery from Koch and co. about how they pioneered this or that aspect of the "Craft revolution", etc., but to now claim that, about two decades into the US "craft era":

• Maytag buying Anchor
• McAulliffe starting New Albion
• Sierra Nevada and Boulder and dozens of others brewing by the mid-'80's
• Hudepohl releasing Christian Moerlein
  
• Koch himself taking seminars at the first eastern "micro" - Albany, NY's Wm. Newman Brewing Co.
  
• Koch hiring Joe Owades who had previously worked on Andrew Reich's New Amsterdam Amber Beer, a "contract brewed" craft beer that predates SABL by several years

(To name a few significant highlights ) that "full-flavored beers with high-quality ingredients did not exist"?

Did I already write "Wow"? And use one of these ? Well, "ditto" then - and throw in a

Well, if other "full-flavored beers with high-quality ingredients did not exist" what beers won the consumer poll in 1983 and 1984 (the first and second GABF's)? Looks like partially-flavor and/or low quality ingredient beers like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Sierra Nevada Porter, Anchor Porter, Russian Imperial Stout, Grant's Scottish Ale, and New Amsterdam Amber. And, of course, those are just some of the beers in the US at the time, not even considering those brewed elsewhere in the world.

 

Agreed. I was also quite taken aback by that comment. It's one thing to claim you were a pioneer, one of the first. And that your company was also one of the first to gain nationwide recognition and fame (and money obviously).

But it's an entirely difference claim to say you were the only one.

 

Well, it should be noted that that quote wasn't from Jim Koch, but from one of hirelings (perhaps one that wasn't even alive at the time or could have had a similar origin as SABL - conceived in '84, born in '85 ). I propose that this BBC rep's Holiday gift bottle of 2015 Utopias be given to a deserving but unemployed BBC customer and the rep awarded, instead, a vintage '97 bottle of SA Triple Bock ("chunky style - the kind where after the bottle is emptied, viewing the inside it appears to have previously contained a dark grey paint...) and a $10 gift certificate for the Chinese restaurant of his choice for a meal to accompany it.

 

They were pioneering all those beers were ales. Koch was the first to brew full flavored LAGERS

 

But neither Koch nor BBC (as illustrated by that rep's quote) ever makes such a specific "craft lager" claim --- well, not since those early days in '85, when he did claim that the reason he was contract-brewing and did not start his own brewery "...you can’t make a good lager in a micro-brewery” in that same April, 1985 AP wire service story.

But Anchor Steam Beer as well as their Porter (initially - can't recall when they converted it to top fermenting yeast) were both bottom-fermented beers, as was the Owades-designed New Amsterdam Amber Beer and several other early "craft" beers that date from 1985 or so like, off-hand, Christian Moerlein, Chesbay Lager, Snake River Amber Lager (which also won at the '85 GABF), Manhattan Lager, Vernon Valley, Millstream, Reinheitsgebot (Plano, TX) and River City Gold from Sacremento's River City Brewing Co., which was founded by a former Schlitz brewer, James Schlueter.

 

Kudos yo you @jesskidden you know your beer history