Samuel Adams LongShot Double IPA
Each year Sam Adams holds the LongShot homebrew contest, where homebrewers can send in samples of their beer, and the three winners that are selected have their beer brewed by Sam Adams and included in the next year’s LongShot 6-pack. It’s sort of like a homebrewer’s dream, to have your own beer brewed by a real brewer and distributed nationally.
So it must have been a bit of a letdown for Mike McDole, the homebrewer who initially created this Double IPA, when he won the contest in 2007. When Sam Adams went out to buy the ingredients for brewing this beer for 2008’s LongShot 6-pack they discovered that as a result of the global hop shortage that was taking place, most of the seven varieties of hops the beer called for were sold out. In response they offered two options to McDole, to either brew the beer using different hop varieties or to wait until the next year when they would be able to secure the hops they needed. McDole chose to wait, and the result is that his beer showed up in the LongShot 6-pack this Spring. More info about the story here.
The word was that this was a pretty darn good beer, and all on its own was a good reason to buy the LongShot 6-pack. So en route to a barbecue earlier this summer I picked up a 6-pack to give it a whirl.
The beer rolls in at 9%. It pours a hazy, amber orange, with a fluffy white head that leaves lots of lacing all the way down the glass. The nose is rich with hop resins and spices, underscored by a strong malt undercurrent, alongside a hint of blood oranges. The palate has lots of thick, sweet malt, substantial hop bitterness with hop resins and spices kicking your tastebuds all over the place. There are also sugared, deeply sweet citrus flavors of lemon and orange. The beer is fairly heavy-textured, with the malt really bringing a velvety thickness. The finish is warm with malt, hop spices, and lingering bitterness.
This is a big double IPA that really emphasizes spicy, resiny hops and supports them with a big, malty body. Not my preferred style of IPA, but really quite good, and it worked pretty darn well at a warm summer barbecue.
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