Saturday, August 04, 2007

Worst Beer Ever?

The worst beer ever? Thats and have I had it is the question? It all started innocently enough, with me and my fiance, meeting some friends at Flying Saucer, a family of bars with a huge selection of beers on tap and in the bottle. When I go to the Saucer my eyes are usually drawn to the chalkboard above the bar highlighting new offerings. It was there that it happened, I saw Sam Adams Triple Bock. I had heard of this Extreme beer from Jim Koch before. In fact it was Boston Beer Company's first Extreme beer, followed by the Chocolate Bock and Utopia among others. We sat down and I eagerly asked our waitress for the Sam Adams Triple Bock, it was a short time later that she came back with this small jet black bottle and a snifter. From this 8.45 oz bottle pours what I can only describe as black tar it was so thick. Thats ok I thought, I love thick beers. My anticipation crumbled at the first sniff. It was pure unadulterated soy sauce. Now I love soy sauce, with my sushi, but not as a beer. If I had known I was going to drink Sam Adams Kikkoman I would have passed.
Before I go further, lets take a step back and talk about the beer itself. The beer is an ale brewed with maple syrup and its aged in old whiskey barrels. This creates a beer that should be complex with flavors of oak and vanilla. Finally the beer weighs in at a robust 18% abv.
Ok, back to the nightmare that was this beer. This is coming from someone that is not faint at heart when it comes to strong beers, or even oak aged beers. I have had my share of Dogfish's 18%+ abv beers, and oak aged beers and have for the most part given them good ratings. Not this time, I can't do it, this was so bad I couldn't finish it. The nose of Soy sauce was so overpowering I couldn't enjoy the beer itself, which all I really got out of it, was some raisiny characteristics and lots of alcohol. While I appreciate what Mr. Koch is trying to do, this was definitely a big SWING and a miss in my book. Its important to point out that it was not just me that had these strong feelings for the beer, the three other people felt the same way. In fact I was SHOCKED to see that 63% of BAer's enjoyed this beer, I have no idea how anyone can truthfully say they enjoyed this beer.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i actually really enjoyed the triple bock. had it a few months ago. i thought it was great and am trying to get my hands on some more. i got quite a bit of bourbon in the nose and the taste.

Barleyvine said...

I'd be interested to know what year the one you had was.