Boston Lager Remastered

I suppose we will collectively know more very soon but my anticipation is similar to what y'all have expressed. My guess is that this 'new and improved' Boston Lager will have a diminished caramel-like flavor and perhaps a lower final gravity to provide an increased aspect of dryness to the beer.

I will try one when it becomes available for scientific research purposes.

Cheers!

 

The copy in the OP's link says "decades of improvement", so...

The big change seemed to come in the late 90s, imo. Prior to that the hops were more pronounced.

 

I wonder why they changed...

 

They should make a Boston lager flavored seltzer

 

It's kind of why craft beer exists in the first place. To continually appeal to the most people leads to a dynamic of becoming more 'homogenized' over time.

 

All this time I thought I was the one who changed. For a lot of us, SA was a fine gateway beer. Readily available. Better than most everything else, at least when SNPA wasn't around.

Last many years, I might have had one of those giant 18 ounce pours at the airport, waiting for a flight. And well, that's not happening either I guess. But I am not buying it in a store that is for certain.

Hope they get back to less C-60 and more Tettnang.
Cheers

 

Previous to around 2016, the labels said 4.9% (further back, they didn't list ABV) - since '16, it's been 5%. That is within the TTB tolerance of ± 0.3%, so it doesn't necessarily signify a change of recipe.

MJ's Pocket Guide to Beer (1988 ed.) said "...original gravity of 12.5, and emerges with 3.5 percent of alcohol by weight."
(Today the SA website says "3.8% ABW").

Yeah, IIRC some exported SABL labels said 4.8% (probably you pointed that out to me ) might have been from a country that actually measures imports? Think I've got a jpeg in my BBC files...

 

FWIW, that is my guess:

"My guess is that this 'new and improved' Boston Lager will have a diminished caramel-like flavor..."

Cheers!

 

*sigh* That's what "we" were fighting in the first place

 

Man... this has been sort of a "go to" when I just wanted a beer. Just a good solid beer... hoping they dont f**k this up...I I will for sure try the new "Remastered" version and I'm hoping for something even better....

 

I dont think that the case at all. If anything I would image the original Boston lager to beer more malt driven with darker hues.

 

I hope they make it less sweet, I might buy it.

 

Would work for me.

 

Boston Lager was introduced in the mid-80’s but I suspect that I never drank one until the early 1990’s sometime. My best recollection is that it was very hoppy by AAL standards and it also had a noticeable caramel-like flavor. Were those Boston Lagers different from today’ Boston Lager. Hmm?

The person who would very much know the answer to this question is Jim Koch:

“1. What’s your desert-island beer?

That’s a stupid question. Everybody always asks that. The quick answer would be Boston Lager. That’s the original. Put it this way: If you go to my house and open my refrigerator, or open the kegerator, that’s what you’ll find. I drink a lot of beer, and I love to try new beers, but when I go home, I’m done with that. I don’t want new, or interesting, I want a reliably rewarding glass of beer. That would be Boston Lager.”

https://vinepair.com/articles/jim-koch-boston-lager/

Jim Koch has historically been a loquacious fellow and at times he has also been quite the huckster.

I feel confident that at some point in time (soon?) he will be spouting off about this “Remastered” beer and provide his unique perspective on this topic.

Cheers!

 

I'm surprised more people haven't focused on the "easier drinking" part of the announcement. Sounds like an attempt to dumb down the beer to appeal to the marco masses.

 

Well Jim got rich making good business decisions. I don't like to see old recipes remastered but frankly I wasn't buying it anyway. Sales are way down im sure so you have to try something different. So many of the old school beers are like this. Classics but with so many choices today we spread our love and money around. There's a dozen big brands you could plug in here like Anchor Steam. Just something I don't buy much with all the beers out there. When I do buy these beers it tends to be an impulse buy in a 19 ounce can , stone, dogfish head , lagunitus, etc

 

I remembered having read that in an old post of yours and thought "that's different, a beer getting a bump in original gravity as opposed to a cut". Keeping the elevated abv and reducing the original gravity back down some, if in fact they have done so this time around, would be a more typical MO. I think I saw it listed as 12.7% for one year or more via the Wayback Machine. Then again I've seen swings as big as that in original gravity from early 1900s Swedish brewing logbooks, from one brew to another of the same beer (though likely blended to greater uniformity in the cellar). Maybe his ancestral recipe came with not just a target OG but a target span of OGs .

Ah, thought I remember 4.8 being listed on the US site. Might have been an old archived version that I looked up in the past. Speaking of relabeling beers for export here's an example from this year of Karmeliten Festbier which I thought was interesting, the beer has a white sticker on the front and back label covering the abv as stated on the label. This beer has been sold here for a few years with the label reading 5.5% and now they've either been caught with a higher abv, or they changed the recipe and didn't want to bother with a new label, leaving it up to the importer to put stickers on the labels. Then again going back to the Boston Lager even EU legislation allows for a 0.3 variance in abv.

 

I don’t buy SA Lager because I don’t like it, flat out it’s too sweet, maybe as Jack mentioned it’s the caramel I don’t like. It’s also I normally steer clear of Highland Whiskey, tends to be sweet almost honey to caramel as well. I don’t generally like any Amber beer, it’s the odd one that I do like.

 

I love honey/caramel. If you have any suggestions (beer), please!

 

FWIW it has been my experience in the past that as the beer ages the 'sweetness' aspect becomes more notable - I suspect because the hop aspect fades with time.

A number of years ago I helped my elderly neighbor to do some 'heavy lifting' for a lawn/gardening project. It was a lot of work but I was happy to help him. As a thank you he bought me a case (24 bottles) of Boston Lager. I was grateful for the thought but Boston Lager was not exactly a favorite of mine. I did eventually drink all 24 of those bottles over a period of many months (all beer consumed before the best by date). Those later beers were notably more sweet/caramel-like in flavor than the earlier beers.

I have read posts of folks who consumed very fresh Boston Lager while touring the small brewery in Boston and expressing how vibrant & hoppy those beers were. I always thought to myself: if I am ever visiting Boston I should tour the Sam Adams brewery to get me some super-fresh Boston Lager.

Cheers!