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| -the author showcasing SAM ADAMS' winter lager clad in knightly armor (thanx valena!!!) Time to 'sleigh' some Clydesdales... |
Here's where things gets tricky: I drink more Sam Adams than anyone else I know. For the longest time it was the only quality lager available in soused stumbling distance of my apartment. Cruise the arteries of West Peoria on any odd calendar square and at least four times a week you will espy my lanky gait lugging a cardboard 12-pack of Sam Adams SEASONAL VARIETIES on the girth of my shoulder blade as if ferrying a cube of mortar to construct a pilsner pyramid from Pharaoh's exodus of empty beer-bottles. Perhaps it was my affinity for Johnny Tremain in 5th grade or that I always kind of always harbored a hardcore Molly Pitcher wearing a three-corner hat and nothing else fetish.
The first beer I legally purchased on my 21st birthday was a six pack of Sam Adams Boston Lager from the now defunct Sullivan's grocery in Campus Town. Since then I literally drool like a pissed-off Pavlovian Chihuahua if I am denied my weekly fix. No other American beer company that I know of goes out of its way to alchemically concoct a yearly of array of diverse and virile-brew in seasonal tempo with the gulp of each season. They have a beer that perfectly correlates in tandem with the taste buds of every week of the year. How I adore the subtle splash of hops hinted in the Latitude, White Water or Noble Pils IPA. How nothing beats watching nonstop repeated viewings of Boondock Saints and Good Will Hunting (both Boston milieu-flavored movies) on St. Patrick's Day while swiging an Irish Red or a (hard to find these days) Boston Ale or a Ruby Mild. How I always find myself taking a seminal swig off a bottle of Alpine Spring tailgating with my raucous bothers outside what to me will always be Comsikey park on opening day, my south side hardcore unyielding White Sox pride cemented with every crisp swallow or re-watching Johnny Tremain after drinking (at the Tartan) during the West Peoria fourth of July parade sipping on a Revolutionary Rye Ale later that night, the breezy still-life wisp of dusk transitions into an thunderous applause of stratospheric neon shingles or come late summer, smoking my pipe on my back steps, reading William Faulkner, dipping into the avuncular swill that is Porch Rocker or walking barefoot through the stolid crunch of variegated auburn leaves abutting the lower level of Bradley park in early November quoting Walt Whitman while covertly nursing a Harvest Ale thinking how every human being living in this area code should sneak a beer into Bradley park and crunch around in the leaves sans shoes.
This is Sam Adams and my affinity for their product and deference in the disciplinary art of craft beer runs deep.
They simply do not make a bad drop.
That said, Winter Lager is one of my least favorites. Not that its a bad beer, because its not. It pours like a friendly vat of molasses. It's spicy. It's the perfect holiday beer back to something wickedly potent like Rumplemintz or Goldschlager. It's just that when you compare it other holiday brews Sam Adams produces, chiefly White Christmas and the formidable Old Fezziwig Ale is falls a few French fries short of a happy meal.
But its still a good fucking beer (better than any of the recently released Budweiser project-12 thoroughly watered down releases) and, if you find yourself at Tartan Inn, I would not hesitate to
order a Winter Lager, take a meditative silent-night sip, think about Christmases past, and, )oh yes) smile.
..but maybe I'm readily amiss...Let's ask Santa Claus and Superman what they think about Sam Adams Winter Lager.
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