THE MUCH-ANTICIPATED, MUCH-MALIGNED SAM ADAMS 1790 ROOT BEER BREW

I’ll admit, I already had a nasty review of the Boston Beer’s Company’s 1790 ROOT BEER BREW all ready to go in my cranium before I’d even popped the cap. Initial reviews elsewhere of this fourth of the 4-beer “Brewer/Patriot” box set were absolutely scathing, with certain outlets calling it vile, heinous, undrinkable, etc etc. Me, I was disappointed when I learned that it had alcohol in it, as I thought it would be a pretty neat marketing trick to combine 3 experimental old-style beers with an experimental old-style root beer. For the kids! Turns out that the Sam Adams folks believe that there really were alcohol-infused, vanilla, molasses-laden sweet beers back in 1790, and they set out to re-create the style. I give them style points for that – and you know what? I actually liked the beer as well. I posit that some folks are either so uncomfortable with the idea of a sweet beer, or the thought of bagging on the makers of “large micro” Sam Adams was just too tempting to pass up – but unless I’m just a wuss (and that’s a possibility), I thought this was not half bad. It had a true vanilla/nutmeg flavor “underneath”, if that makes any sense, but it was first and foremost a beer, one that could have come out of a tap and been quaffed with moderate pleasure in a pint glass. It was smooth and carbonated very well, and only its wild-ass experimentation keeps it from being in the very good/excellent category, but I think a 6.5/10 compares pretty well to most other beers out there.