Samuel Adams Spruce Lager! Now that sounded interesting. I love a good Spruce beer, but they’re so few and far between these days. Spruce beers were common in early colonial times, when spruce tips were boiled with malt (if they had it), molasses, and hops (if they had them). Today, some varieties of American hops throw off resiny, piney notes, so why not resiny pine notes from spruce trees?
Samuel Adams Spruce Lager is available in the 2018 Beers of Fall Sampler. In the sampler, you will get two bottles of the Spruce Lager as well as two bottles each of:
Samuel Adams Pumpkin Ale
Samuel Adams Coffee Pale Ale
Samuel Adams Spruce Lager has an alcohol content of 5.1% by volume with 14 IBUs. My bottle is notched as best before January of 2019. The label describes the beer as Lager brewed with spruce tips with Spruce tips added. It also describes the beer as Crisp & refreshing with notes of pine. I paid $13.99 for my fall sampler 12 pack at Kroger.
Samuel Adams Spruce Lager pours to an attractive golden-brown color with a thick fluffy head and very subtle aromas of citrus and pine in the nose. Taking a sip, the beer offers soft bready malt notes up front with very delicate piney spruce notes. They pick up just a tad in the balanced finish, but the beer leaves me wondering where the signature ingredient is.
I was very much looking forward to a tasty spruce beer, but Samuel Adams Spruce Lager really let me down. If you call it a spruce beer, there ahd better be spruce notes, and try as I might to find them I only got the faintest hints.
Not a beer I would buy again.
And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.
*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.
(B)=Bottled
(D)=Draft