Review: LongShot Cranberry Wit

This is the third of three beers in Samuel Adams' LongShot six-packs this year. As I've written before, LongShot beers are the winners of Sam Adams' annual homebrew competition.

I've been slacking on this review. I'm so late, it's probably not in stores anymore. I didn't see any at Total Wine & More on University Parkway the other day.

A witbier, or wheat beer, is similar to a German hefeweizen. Both beers are brewed with malted wheat, in addition to the regular malted barley. Witbiers are a Belgian style that also use spices like coriander and orange peel. German beers cannot use spice because of their famous purity law, the Reinheitsgebot, which prohibits the use of anything in beer other than water, malted grain, yeast and hops. I totally respect the German law, because it means you won't have junk like rice or corn put in your beer without your knowledge, but it prevents German brewers from making some really interesting beers with fruit, spices, honey, etc.

Wheat beers are almost always unfiltered and therefore cloudy. Yeast and other perfectly safe sediment will settle at the bottom of the bottle. You are supposed to pour two-thirds of the beer into a glass, then swirl the remaining beer in the bottle to stir up the compacted sediment, and finally pour that into the glass. Without the sediment, the typical wheat beer flavors are greatly subdued.

What are wheat beer flavors? Banana and clove, primarily. And these flavors don't come from bananas or cloves. Instead, they are esters (flavors) imparted by the yeast.

A lot of wheat beers in restaurants and bars are served with lemon or orange wedges. I avoid garnishes because the citric acid can kill the beer's head and garnishes mask the beer's flavor. Whether to garnish or not is a hot topic among beer geeks.

My tasting notes:

A cloudy straw-colored beer with a big, white foamy head. Lovely.

It has a spicy aroma of cranberries and earthy yeast.

The taste is lightly spicy and sweet from fruit flavors, yet it has the classic witbier esters of clove and banana. I also notice the grains of paradise that appear in other SA beers. It's very easy to drink.

This is my least favorite of the three LongShot beers this year. But that sounds a lot worse than it is. This is still a very good beer. It's light and fruity and refreshing. It's good for all the hot days here in Florida.

Like its two brethren, this beer should be added to Samuel Adams' regular lineup.

Review: LongShot Traditional Bock

Traditional Bock is the second-best of the three LongShot beers from Samuel Adams this year. You may not agree if you don't like super-hoppy beers like their Double IPA, which I love.

LongShot brews, as I wrote about in a previous post, are the winners of SA's homebrew contest.

A bock is a dark lager. Lager beers are brewed with yeast that ferments at the bottom of the vessel (ale yeast ferments at the top) and at cold temperatures. Lagers are also conditioned, which means they are aged for weeks at cold temperatures after they have fermented. The flavors of a lager are cleaner and somewhat lighter than ales.

You can't hide brewing mistakes (fermented too hot, mashed grains wrong) in a lager like you can in an ale, which is one reason I never made a lager back when I homebrewed.

This beer shows that Americans can make German beers just as well as Germans.

My notes:

A deep amber in color with a thick, off-white head.

It has a good, sweet malty aroma.

The taste is quite good. Clean, sweet malt flavors -- caramel, syrup, even fruit -- are perfectly balanced with a hint of bitterness.

Its body is smooth and hefty.

This is a great everyday brew and another LongShot beer that should be added to Sam Adams' regular roster.

Review: LongShot Double IPA

This is the best of the three beers in Samuel Adams' LongShot six-pack this year. LongShot brews, as I wrote about in a previous post, are the winners of SA's homebrew contest.

Pours a cloudy amber in color with a sticky and foamy off-white head.The aroma is all about the hops: Herbal, earthy, citrus -- this beer has it all. The aroma reminds me of smelling hops before homebrewing.

The taste is wonderful. Big hops flavors (earthy, vegetable and citrus) and bitterness mix with a slight sweetness from the malt. This is a hop bomb. This must have been dry-hopped with pounds of the stuff. The hop flavors are soap-like, and I mean that as a compliment. Noticeable alcohol flavors.

Great body that's smooth yet also light, perhaps from the alcohol.

A must for hopheads, especially at the ridiculous cheap price SA charges for its Longshot six-packs.

This is a masterpiece and the best beer I've had from Samuel Adams.

Boston Brewing Co.: Please add this beer to your year-round offerings!

If you like hops, you have to have some of this beer. Drop what you're doing right now and go seek it out.

Samuel Adams LongShot, get it while you can

LongShot is a pretty cool idea. Homebrewers from across the country submit their beers and the Boston Beer Co., maker of Samuel Adams beers, brews the best and sells them in limited-edition six-packs.

There are three beers in the packs, two of each.

• Cranberry Wit, a wheatbeer brewed with (surprise!) cranberries and other spices.
• Traditional Bock, a German lager.
• Double IPA, a stronger and hoppier India Pale Ale.

The Wit and Bock were the 2008 winners. The Double IPA actually won in 2007, but wasn't brewed until this year because of a hop shortage. It has seven types of hops in it, and boatloads of them, after all.

I've been enjoying these beers so much, particularly the bock and double IPA, that I bought a case. It's still available locally. I've found it at the Total Wine & More off University Parkway near Interstate 75.

It may be a Total Wine pricing thing, but LongShot is $6.99 a six-pack, which is cheaper than regular Samuel Adams beers at my local Publix, and a steal for beers of this quality. They're easily good enough to be added to the brewery's regular lineup.

Look for my reviews of all three beers here in the near future.