Samuel Adams Cranberry Lambic

Brewed by Boston Beer Company
Style: Fruit Beer
Boston, Massachusetts USA

This has a wonderful smell of fresh cranberries, but you expect that from cranberry juice not a beer. It has a potent sour cranberry taste which i like but its stuffed with malt which is a bit strange.

Nose is very much like a witbier with sour tones, very wheatey with lots of cranberry and some spice coming through. Nice deep straw color with a good head by SA standards (not a brand known for it’s great head). Intresting, simplistic, yet complex flavors. Big bite of wheat on the palate with some light grainy malt notes and a bit of spice. Cranberry is evident in the aroma and flavor as you drink. There is a real sourness apparent, goes well with the light malt notes. A pretty good mouthfeel, easily accomplished with wheat beer. Lively carbed with good body. Though techniclly not a fruit beer, this is the "best" fruit beer I’ve had (really the only one that I’ve liked). Not a favorite, but worth drinking when looking for something different. For the record I’m not familiar with Lambic beers, but this one would seem to pass mustard as a Lambic Styled beer. To be fair, this beer is probably more of a 2.2-2.4 rated beer, but I scored it higher as it’s a bit of a novelty and as bad as some seem to think.

Poured from a bottle. Poured a clear, pale yellow-copper color with almost no head. Aroma of cranberries, and a gross sour smell. The flavor is sort of the same. A sweet entry leads to a strong artificial cranberry taste that finishes with a sour taste that I just couldn’t enjoy. I don’t usually pour beers, but this one has to go.

Bottle massive thanks to hopscotch! Pours a muddy brown, but nice head. Aroma is lightly aciic, fruity, lacking somewhat but wheaty notes and quite unusal indeed. Taste is a strange sensation that takes quite a while to get used too, but thin cranberry juice is very noticeable aswell as other acidic dry fruit flavours. Theres no denying this isnt a top beer but its refreshing and im quite glad i have another.

Puts a hazy orange with thin disapating head. Sour, yeasty aroma, more like a Witbier than a Lambic. Cranberry taste comes through clearly, but not overbearing.

12 fl oz bottle. Had this out of a 2007 Sam Adams Seasonal Selection box. Oh deary, deary me, what was that? If you like cranberries, just stick to cranberry juice – and save yourself some money. The Sam Adams Cranberry Lambric is possibly the worst beer of any sort that I have ever tried. It was way too sweet and the dominance of the cranberries was just too much. The remainder of this bottle went straight down the sink. The second bottle in the selection box was given to someone I don’t like. To be honest, the entire 2007 winter selection was disappointing for me.

Moderate to pale golden body in flute....perfectly foamy two-finger white head clings in varying lengths...light yeastu aroma with a hint of malt and light bread dough...the cranberry arrives with a little medicine feel to it...the malt suppresses the fruit to a degree...light-to-medium body...rather dry and acidic--effervescent, but a bit of a scrape at the throat...a friend once told me this wasn’t, by definition, a lambic, as it doesn’t use the strain or spontaneously ferment...although that may affect the taste, my experience offers a dry, bubbly subdued version of a Lindeman’s, and a trumped-up version of any proliferation of other American "fruit" beers crafted simply to increase a brewery’s selection...surprised to see the rather harsh treatment of this beer...the Kenny G of lambics?

12oz bottle. small head, cloudy body, tart aftertaste, little in the way of cranberry. One left in the sampler that I’ll pass on.