Samuel Adams LongShot Double IPA

Brewed by Boston Beer Company
Style: Imperial/Double IPA
Boston, Massachusetts USA

Cloudy and rusty-orange with a great head. Earthy, wholesome, cozy and tasty. Strong malty base is filled with chalky cocoa and bread dough. Hops are balancing, bold and rich, with notes of grapefruit and juicy citrus. Slight alcohol nip. Nice amount of bitterness, along with some rind in the finish.

Pours orangish/amber into the glass with a white head. I knocked down appearance points because its very cloudy. Aroma is very citrusy. Flavor is nothing but hops, which I expect for the style, but would like a bit more malt backbone on this hop bomb. Pretty good beer though. Kudos Mike!

Maybe my bottle of this was a little old, but it had nowhere near the hops you hope for from a DIPA and actually had some of the stale-ish maltiness that I associate with older hoppy beers. I knew it was too good to be true that BBC could brew a real hoppy beer.

Bottle. Pours a hazy amber-orange with a little ring of foam that seems to linger. Smells of many different kinds of hops and lots of them! It almost burns the nostrils. Smell reminds me of Bell’s Hopslam. A bit strong with the alcohol and the hops, but thats what home brewing is about; trying new and extreme stuff. Not my favorite beer in the world, but still a very good IPA!

Pours a hazy copper color with medium off white head. Aromas of malts and piney hop and some citrus.Kind of a weird aroma that I cant nail down in there as well. Flavor is of big malt...but also big hop.It seems to be a little unbalanced on the heavy malt side,but comes together at the end to be a hop bomb. Not bad,but I think I was expecting more.

Either I’m not as big on IPA beers as others are, or this one just wasn’t one of my favorites. I LOVE the strength of the beer! For a 9% it was pretty smooth. The problem is that it has that rough aftertaste that some IPA’s seem to have. My friends hated it. I was ok with it. Not bad, but not great either.

Very hazy copper pour, sticky lace - quite a thick malt base in the nose, but with copious hop character, cherry, citrus, oats - smells almost like a super-hoppy american barleywine - a chewy malt base tries to keep the potent hop character in check, with mixed results - those hops are tasty, but they get astringent at times - thankfully, the hops mellow just slightly near the end, revealing some estery fruitiness, caramel, earthiness - again, reminding me a bit of hoppy barleywine - some alcohol heat in the finish - regardless of the slight astringency, this is some pretty tasty stuff.

My sample must have been very near the end of it’s appropriate shelf-life...very played out and even some off sour notes. I’ll rerate if/when I get another sample.