Samuel Adams Triple Bock

Formerly brewed at Boston Beer Company
Style: Barley Wine
Boston, Massachusetts USA

Serve in Snifter

send corrections   |   shelftag   |   edit barcodes   |   update pic

1997 vintage, purchased at Discount Liquor probably 10 years ago. Pours a dark purplish brown color with no head. Perfect cork, no floaties, but the inside of the bottle was coated with something. Aroma is fruity, cherry, raisin, leather. Heavy on the palate, flat. Flavor is sweet, raisin, leather, soy, molasses, with a sweet, malty finish. Not a horror story, but not as great as I remember it.

UPDATED: MAY 9, 2013 1997 bottle. @adnielsen: what the H kind of ratings distribution is this? well here goes. this bottle was provided by j12601 for secret santa maybe a few years back. try to open the thing and the cork crumbles in half with a huge chunk falling right into the beer! pours a deep dark brown with bits of cork strewn about. flat. aroma is big potent salty soy sauce. once you get beyond the wallop of soy sauce, got some black licorice, tar, ash, smoke. also some sweet prune juice. chocolately nose filling booze rounds things out. not so inviting. but not that bad either. initial sip leads to a norm macdonald-esque grimace. not too nice. notes of big boozy sweet prunes. motor oil. hint of death. finishes with a toasted purple grape drank medicine. undrinkable. a 1 on the budlight drinkability scale. pour this one out for the cates.

Brassin 1997. Bouteille de 8.45 oz achetée chez Finger Lakes Beverage Center (Ithaca, NY). Arôme: Odeur d’alcool et de mélasse. Apparence: La couleur est noire. Saveur: Goût de caramel et de mélasse avec une pointe d’alcool. Longue durée de l’arrière goût. Palette: Le corps est plein avec une texture légèrement liquoreuse. Faible effervescence en bouche. Légère présence d’alcool en arrière goût. (Rating #4721)

Bottle bought for probably too much. 1994 vintage. A: Falls out of the bottle like the nozzle is doing its best to expunge the material. Zero head and zero carbonation. Cork broke in the bottle, which is highly encouraging. N: Nose is rich chocolate, soy sauce, prune and raisin. The oxidation you’d expect is here. Still has an alcohol presence, and honestly this, isn’t the worst thing. It smells a lot like Dark Lord. T: Mint, chocolate, prune, and enough oxidation to rust off a hubcap. Dark sherry and peanuts. Alcohol is muted by now. Port notes. Not the worst thing in the world, though there’s too many discombobulated flavors to be good. M: Placid and slimy. Not good. O: Seeing as this was the 1994 vintage, I knew there was a chance this could be fairly decent. I was kind of hoping for a travesty rather than something merely bad and unpalatable. That said, it was a great joy to me to watch peoples’ faces shrivel when they tried this unpleasant concoction. I gather this was one of the ’good’ bottles.

1995 bottle. Aroma of soy and plum sauce. There is some strange mint aspect that was confirmed by a few of my friends. Very creamy on the palate with the taste sweet like molasses with some saltiness to it. The color is very dark with a fair amount of oil on the glass. It is very clear that this beer is past its prime.

from notes: no markings, which likely make this a ’97. Poured opaque cola brown-to-black, with no visible head or carbonation at all. Aroma was medicinal, wine-like, with perhaps a sweet malt note in there someplace. Full body, viscous. Vinegary, medicinal flavor, with an odd note that I can’t identify underneath, maybe something woody. Unfortunately, something appears to have happened to these over time, based on my experience and other recent reviews. I had this when it first came out, and it was excellent. Now, it’s terrible. Perhaps air got to it?? There was a lot of an odd black residue left on the inside of the bottle. Quite unfortunate.

Friend got two bottles of the 1995, for free. That should have said something. Popped the cork; looked as if someone had used it for a butt plug; brown and covered in slime. Strong odor of what I thought was soy sauce? Poured thick, opaque, with no head. Not quite black. Motor oil; really. Thick on the mouth feel, although, and very strong flavors of malt and almost salty? Was this soy sauce? I couldn’t put my finger on the taste... but, thought, perhaps? Opened a bottle of black strap molasses, dipped my finger in and tasted it. Color and viscosity were close to the same, but, the molasses tasted better. Dumped the rest of the bottle down the drain. Only too find a full inch of settlement in the bottom of the bottle. It IS an experience.

1997 bottle from Discount in Milwaukee. Well, this was something. Pours a deep, dirty motor oil, leaves a nasty black film on the bottle as well. Pours still. Nose is super intense. Miso, soy sauce and raisins. Port-like except for the soy notes. Low levels of oxidation, remarkably. On tasting, intensely rich and sweet. Big alcohol notes. Pureed raisins, quite vinous and showing soy notes again. Not for the faint of heart. Thick and heavy bodied. Interesting but too much.

1997 Vintage I purchase this bottle in Texas in 1997 and its moved with me at least three times, and was lost in a box and forgotten for a long period of time. Tonight this will be flat beer number two. Pours a solid dark brown/inky black color with no head at all. Smells of raisins, prunes, plums, molasses, alcohol, brown sugar, cherries, maple syrup, vodka, vanilla, wood. There’s a lot going on in the nose, and its not all bad like some of the other reviews elude to. The flavor is not quite what the aroma promised me. This is very sweet and syrupy up front with lots of brown sugar, molasses, and maple. I get a meatiness, if that’s possible, midway through. Lots of fruit comes next with cherries, prunes, and plums, along with a bit of ash, chocolate and ethanol. The finish is a long lingering burnt sugar, caramel, molasses bitterness that sticks to the palette like oil. Thick viscous body with a thick syrupy mouthfeel, and zero carbonation. I had this fresh in 1997 and drain poured it, but my palette wasn’t ready for it then. Tonight I enjoyed sipping on this for the better part of the night. I think that my bottle somehow fared better than some others because I have had samples of this recently that I didn’t enjoy. I’m glad I saved a "good" bottle of this amazingly complex boundary stretching elixir.

Bottle shared by my man Seth. Dark brown pour with no head. Sweet caramel, fudge, and soy sauce aromas. My be a bit past it’s prime. Very sweet with loads of chocolate and rich caramel notes. Decent body.