Sam Adams Utopias 2025

Review Date 1/1/2026 By John Staradumsky

  Style: Strong Ale   Brewery: Boston Beer   Country: USA   State: Massachusetts   $ Per OZ: $11.77 (B)   ABV: 30%

It all started with Triple Bock. Don’t take my word for it, though. Just ask Jim Koch, founder of the Boston Beer Company, makers of the Samuel Adams line of beers. From the information card attached to the neck of the 2025 Samuel Adams Utopias bottle:

Our journey into extreme beer started in 1994 when we brewed Samuel Adams Triple Bock in our Boston Brewery.

You can see from my review of Triple Bock, linked above, that it was indeed an innovative (and for some controversial) brew back in the 1990s. It was at the time one of the strongest beers in the world at 17.5% alcohol by volume, and perhaps one of the more, if not most, expensive. I recorded the price at the time as $4.75 for an 8.75-ounce bottle, or about $.54 an ounce. Adjusted for inflation, that is about $1.15 an ounce in today’s dollars.

Jim Koch had more extreme beer in mind, though. A few years later, Boston Beer released Samuel Adams Millenium (Not to be confused with Samuel Adams Millenium Ale), the forerunner for Utopias. It was sold in 750 ML bottles that came in a felt-lined wooden box and bumped up the ABV to 21%. I remarked upon the price in a Usenet post on December 16^th, 1999:

First it was Sam Adams Millennium at $200 a bottle, today I get a flyer in
the mail about Pharaoh's Gold at $100 a bottle plus $15 for shipping. Claims
to be the rarest beer on Earth but that might be debatable. Limited to one
bottle per customer, it's supposed to simulate ancient Egyptian beer.

Adjusted for inflation, that would be $388 a bottle today, so though the suggested list price of $299 for a bottle of Utopias in 2025 may seem pricey, it is actually less in real dollars than Millenium cost in its day. Of course, you don’t get the fancy box, but Utopias does come in a super cool copper-colored decanter shaped like a brew kettle.

I sampled Millenium while judging entries at the Great Northeast International Beer Expo in Providence, Rhode Island in 1999 or 2000. I can’t recall which year it was, and if I took tasting notes, I lost them. Sad, that, as I would love to compare with Utopias today.

Millenium, clearly named for the approaching year 2000 when it was released, needed a new name, and so in 2001 Utopias was born. That was when I moved to Georgia, and I have never seen it here as it is over the 14% limit for beer. In fact, it cannot be sold in 15 states, though you can buy spirits far stronger than Utopias in all of them. You just cannot call them beer.

I did manage to get a bottle of the 2025 release of Utopias, and this is the first time I have ever tried it. It is only released every two years, increasing the rarity and no doubt the demand. It has increased steadily in strength over the years from 24% to 30% for the 2025. Utopias undergoes a lengthy barrel aging process that changes from release to release. Boston Beer describes the production of the 2025 Utopias on their website:

Each Utopias we explore uncharted territory with new blending techniques. And each new Utopias blend is made from an array of earlier years, some of the extreme beers already aged up-to 30 years. We finish the blend in still another variety casks that deepen the final flavor.

We've always aged Utopias in charred whiskey barrels—some of which are up to 3 decades old—but this year we've added new barrels for an even more distinct flavor. The 2025 Utopias introduces Irish Whiskey, Amarone, and White Port barrels to our aging process, alongside our traditional Ruby Port, Carcavelos, Cognac, and most recently, Scotch casks. We began barrel-aging beer in 1993 with the Triple Bock. Today, our techniques have led to the lunatic fringe of brewing, one of the oldest, strongest, most extreme beers in the world.

Yes, Utopias is expensive. This is what you are paying for, however, a unique experience and painstaking brewing and aging process that is unique in the beer world. Utopias is touched by every Boston Beer brewery, an extra step that ties it to the company’s rich history in the world of craft beer.

Boston Beer lists the following ingredients:

Malt Varieties:

Two-Row Pale Malt Blend

Munich

Caramel 60

Yeast Strains:

Several strains of brewers' yeast, a proprietary "Ninja Yeast," and a special yeast generally reserved for Champagne.

Noble Hop Varieties:

Halltertau Mittelfrueh

Spalt Spalter

Tettnang Tettnanger

Samuel Admas Utopias comes in, as I mentioned earlier, a liquor styled decanter with a screw top that you can replace after you pour a glass. The beer is not carbonated so should last for years after opening. A Samuel Adams bottle cap must be removed after screwing the top off.

I poured about 3 ounces into a Triple Bock glass on New Year’s Day 2026 to sample Utopias for the first time. I will say I was honestly anxious to see if the beer lived up to the hype and was worth the price of admission. Right from the start, I was amazed by the complex aromas that wafted from my small glass. Heady and complex, they were as much a part of my enjoyment as drinking the beer was. The drinking process was lengthy, and it took me about 90 minutes to finish my small glass. I took small sips, savoring each one, and indeed each small sip was all I needed or wanted. The beer is that rich.

Enjoying Utopias, my bottle stamped #23,921, I got an intense nose of toasted walnuts, maple syrup, dark fruity raisin and prune, and woody booze. Taking a sip, the beer is amazingly intense, very woody from the barrel aging up front, with strong notes of Irish whiskey, caramel, treacle, vanilla, then again the dark fruity raisin and prune and plum to boot. There is some bright citrus, black pepper, and jet fuel boozy notes, especially in the finish.

Samuel Adams Utopias does remind me of its Tripel Bock origins a bit with the dark fruit and maple syrup notes. It has evolved over the years far beyond that beer, of course.

Was it worth the price? It is, after all, the most expensive beer I’ve ever enjoyed, although my wife bought it for me as a Christmas gift. At $299 per 25.4 ounce bottle, it is almost $5 an ounce pricier than the former champion in that category (for me), Westvleteren 12. That is certainly a lot.

Still, I think it is worth it, and I would buy it again. I will be on the lookout for the 2027 release for sure. No two Utopias editions are exactly the same; it is different each time. Utopias is a beer to linger over, not just each glass, but the entire bottle as you reserve it for special occasions. As you do, and the beer ages, it should improve according to Boston Beer. I will be back with updates on how that turns out.

Glad I tried it?  T

Would I rebuy it??