A new Sam Adams beer - Festbier

Last year the Sam Adams tap room in Boston did release Old Fezziwig in four packs of 16 once cans. It was a small batch and I have no idea how long it lasted. I never went over to pick any up, but I wish I did.

 

See, I like my Helles and Festbier to be soft and smooth to dry in the finish -- not necessarily crisp. I leave that for a good German Pils.

But you're right, there are a few different takes on Festbier (there is a real good one being brewed locally I hope to find again this year) -- will be interesting to taste Sam Adams' rendition.

 

Traditional in name. It will be interesting to taste this one. They did pretty good with Alpine Spring, so fingers crossed.

 

Won't lie...I will pick this up for sure of I see it...the Oktoberfest is a staple in my fridge every fall but I prefer the more pale offerings so I will for sure try this

 

I'd like to see the return of the Rauchbier. Would definitely be in favor for a Rauchbier in a German variety pack. I think a German lager variety pack would sell well for the season.

 

Like many, I find the Sam A regular Okto-fest a tad too sweet....

I will be looking forward to trying this new "festbier" variation though.....esp. since it is brewed here in Ohio (Cincy)....bring them on!

 

That variety pack is so legit and an awesome lineup , where have the good times gone? There has to be a large market of beer drinkers that would be all over that variety pack here in 2021 simply because a) these are beers that BBC actually makes very well/better than most of mass distributed competition b) the competition for these styles is much less than their current pushed options which are bland, easy drinkers and hazy IPAs done subpar.

 

For some reason the “Smooth Lager” naming kind of irks me. It’s a lager, of course I should expect it to be smooth. Did marketing think that insulting the customer with something so obvious would get them extra sales?

 

Since "lager" has been such a bad word in craft brewing for so long, maybe they weren't taking chances.

 

Well, that'd be ironic considering they were one of the main breweries to make lager acceptable and cool again with their OG Boston Lager. Should they rebrand that to "crisp and tangy (Boston) Lager"?

 

Well, I was being facetious, but...

But did they really? So many slams against Sam Adams as a "craft brewery" from the "craft brew community" over the years, you have to wonder.

Then there's the debate over BL being a Vienna -- and is it really all that smooth like a good lager? Let alone an elegant Vienna (and yes, I'm talking in to-style terms, not outright drinkability/enjoyability).

And let's not get into the debate over their Octo.

But yeah, there's the Alpine Spring -- which I never got an opportunity to try when it was rebranded.

 

Not sure what the US-based marketing guys think but (and maybe 'cause I know "too much" ) I always associate "smooth" with the UK marketing of canned and bottled nitrogenized beers, like Guinness Smooth and John Smith Extra Smooth.

I used to joke: "Smooth? Gee, then what are other beers? Chunky-Style? Like peanut butter." Of course, the joke's probably no longer funny (if it ever was ) given all of today's "innovative" beers than are chunky, murky, thick and hazy.

(BTW - Chunky, Murky, Thick & Hazy are not Snow White's #8 - 11 dwarf rejects).

 

But it might be a good name for a new Dogfish Head NEIPA.

 

I've written it before here on the BA forums (and thought it much more often) but, as you note, I'm guilty of it, too - someone trying to be ironic, sarcastic or funny or otherwise ridicule the flavorings added to what used to be beer:

 

Who knows what lurks in the mind of marketers.

 

Their Octoberfest (Märzen-style) is too candy-sweet for me, but I'd give this a try.

 

Perhaps they have discovered the same secret that the Hamm's people discovered in the 1960s.

 

Olympia Brewing Co's president, Leopold F. Schmidt might have given away that secret after that company purchased the Theo. Hamm Brewing Co. in 1975.

Hamm's had briefly been owned by a group of mid-western Hamm's distributors ("Brewers Unlimited") but previous to that the importer Heublein (Smirnoff, Black & White Scotch, even Guinness into the 1960s) was Hamm's parent company. (Before Heublein purchase, one half of current Hamm's label owner Molson had attempted to purchase the company but that takeover was abandoned after objections by DoJ over Anti-trust concerns.)

Although back in 1968 the local Minneapolis Star's business reporter announcing the new "Smooth" campaign noted that Theo. Hamm had switched to a newly patented type of hop extract (even hiring the creator of the process from Pfizer) that resulted in a beer with "less bitterness and double the shelf life". The main development being "the elimination in the extract of much of the resins that provide the bitter taste generally associated with beer."

 

The Shadow do...?