Samuel Smith Underwhelming

Yorkshire stingo. Mega backed.

 

Use to have a Winter Welcome Ale to celebrate the season, but not in some time. Quality wise, Taddy Porter is pretty tasty.

 

Yeah, the cask ale vs. bottled version (or standard keg) definitely are different. Great point. I'm not a fan of the cask-style beer, but I'll keep trying it -- luckily, we've got a couple of places in town that keep a cask-style ale at the ready.

Yards' Brawler is fantastic, as we both know. I forgot about that one. It's definitely a well-made English style.

I'll check out Samuel Adams' English version if I can find it.

 

I think they are pretty solid beers. Nut brown is probably my favorite classic style brown ale.

 

I dig Sam Smith.

 

As said before in this thread, I believe that they represent the style fairly well. I think that they produce a solid brew, its just that so many newer breweries are doing over the top stuff and weird and different variations on the basic styles, that they are being left behind somewhat, especially since they change and revamp far less than most more modern breweries..

 

I've never been blown away by their beer, but I never expected to be. I think they make some pretty solid representations of the styles they brew. I still enjoy one from time to time.

 

I love their oatmeal stout, one of my favorite English beers.

 

Love'em, especially their Oatmeal Stout, Imperial Stout, and Organic Pale Ale. Their other beers are quality beers but I often don't reach for them.

 

Call me a girly boy, but I love their Organic Strawberry. It is one of my favorite pontoon beers!

 

For me, i enjoy what ive had from them. Very solid, no frills type deal. You get a good, traditional beer for the styles. Nothing over the top, nothing too fancy. I like others more than sam smiths but also they make one of my favorite browns.

 

I thought their oatmeal stout was pretty meh, but maybe it's just because I'm used to American ones

 

That would be the Boston Ale, I probably should have mentioned in the other post.

 

I've never quite gotten over the fact that Samuel Smith's Pale Ale was the most expensive beer I'd ever purchased, soon after they first hit the US market via Merchant du Vin, circa 1979-80. Well over $1/bottle - probably something like $6.99 a sixpack! That's about what a case of US-brewed beer was going for at the time.

And, upon opening one of the bottles, out came some... stuff --- turned to be mold , after I'd scratched off the foil (underneath of which was more mold) on the neck and found a crack in the bottle. WTF! The foil had hid both the crack and the mold floating in the beer - I'd never seen that before. So, my most expensive beer purchase up to then was actually a Five-pack.

And the beer itself from the intact bottles (which, of course, I'd read about briefly re: Yorkshire squares in Jackson's first World Guide to Beer) reminded me most of my own 17¢ (or whatever it was at the time) a bottle homebrew.

I guess SS made up for it to me when my old drinking buddy (RIP ) and I did a beer tour of the UK in the mid-1980s and we were allowed to tag along with a tour group of somewhat uninterested Brits, so we were able to get most of the guide's attention. Will already remember sticking my head down into an empty one of those same Yorkshire squares..."Ah, I get it now..."

 

England does not produce lagers as a forte, it's an ale country. Lagers are not easy to produce. You are incorrect.

Respect the brand. I don't care what you do.

 

Take a trip to London, go to this pub, understand how good Sam Smith can be.

 

Fair dos, but I'm not sure any of their offerings hit the nail on the head in terms of being true to style, if it were possible to be true to style, which it isn't.

 

The fuss on this site is because most of us are in the US, don't have regular access to cask ale, when we do it's usually from a US brewer doing a US style, and the only fresh British ales we see with any regularity is Sam Smith's and Fuller's.
The somewhat older US advocates here remember a time when US craft was rare, and our best options were British ales like Sam Smith's and Fuller's and German imports.

 

The best Oatmeal Stout!