People are, if you'll excuse the cliche, creatures of habit. Change can be exhilarating but there's also something lovely and calming about the certainty of something familiar. A favorite shirt, a comfortable chair, or a beverage with a noticeable alcohol content can all bring about instant neuron-dampening relaxation in a changing and confusing world. This is the case with my default beer, Samuel Adams Boston Lager.
The real life Samuel Adams was, technically, a brewer but he wasn't a very good one and quickly ran the family business into the ground. Instead he was best remembered for being a political hothead who was passionate about the idea of American emancipation from British rule, was the ring-leader of both the Sons of Liberty secret organization and the Boston Tea Party and eventually became governor of Massachusetts in spite of being such a chronically bad businessman that he had to accept hand-me down garments from friends in order to clothe his family. With such a questionable business acumen Mr. Adams is not the the most obvious choice for a mascot for a successful product but he's the only person who can be tagged with the wonderful line of "The Brewer Patriot;" a line that appeals to the twin American loves of nationalism and beer. To help out the overly positive spin job being done on Adams' bio the logo doesn't feature an actual portrait of the big, fat, ugly guy that Adams was and instead goes with a picture of Paul Revere. History isn't always particularly pretty or even particularly accurate. Even better, the beer isn't even the same recipe that old Sam tried and failed to brew. It's originally a mix made by the Koch brewery that, when the beer was re-launched in the mid 1980's, had the name and doctored image of Samuel Adams slapped on the bottle. With a background like that it's amazing that it's an American product and not something that came out of Hong Kong.
While the Samuel Adams brewing company is playing the verbal equivalent of three card monte with it's lineage the beer itself is on solid ground. The Boston Lager has a nice amber color with plenty of carbonation and a small to medium sized head that varies depending on how poorly you pour. The lager tastes good poured into a glass or, if you're in a more relaxed atmosphere, chugged straight out of the bottle. The beer has a slight bite to it's flavor giving Boston Lager a taste that lets you know you are drinking a beer but doesn't overwhelm you or leave you with an overwhelming after taste. Drinking Boston Lager puts you in mind of eating seafood while sitting on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean but without the salt-encrusting wind, the ice cold green sea water, and the barnacle smell that permeates Boston and other coastal cities.
Although I enjoy Samuel Adams Boston Lager I do wonder about it's place in the world. It's not some cult-like beer that only a few people drink, it's not the hip, trendy thing to drink, it's simply a choice of beer. It's the sort of thing an investment banker would drink while listening to a blues band. I'm not some sort of indie snob who will turn up their nose at something simply because it's popular but I do wonder what the future holds for Samuel Adams. Will the future drinkers of the world -who are either still clutching to their mother's apron strings or who have not even been born- sneer at my choice of liquid refreshment as they drink their cans of Busch Lite and Coors without irony? Will some other beer with nebulous ties to the American founding fathers ["Bad Boy Ben Franklin's Wide Mouth Forty" or some such thing] come along and displace it? I don't know, but for now I can order a draw of Sam Adams with a clean conscience, a happy palate, and a commericalized sense of patriotism.
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