Sam Adams odyssey part two: Sam Aadms Light

Sam dams Odyssey part 2

Sam Adams Light

beer is sitting over my kegerator, and next to be beer flag

On my last review I tried the blueberry wit, and I expected that I would not care for the brew. I was wrong, and found it to be a decent brew. Now this is the one beer from Sam Adams that I have some of the least expectation for (Cherry wheat is the one that I have the most Dredd to try, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it). For this beer, I will be treating it like a light beer, aka comparing it to the other light beers I've had in the past. As a result it may have a high rateing, but just remember, this merely reflects its rating in its weight class.

Because of that, it might get a decent review. I have no idea. I really have never had it before. But yea, enough talk! Lets get started

• Sam Adams
  • Sam Adams light, 1.69, bottle
    • beer style: light lager, 4.3%
    • rateings: ratebeer(16\100), beer advocate (75\100)
    • personal rating: BA style, followed by a overall x\100
      • appearance: This beer actually has some color to it. A very light amber coloration distinguishes itself from its other light brethen, with no real head forming in my glass. Might had been my extra careful pour. Overall not bad. 4\5
      • aroma: Their really isn't anything here that I like. It really just smells like your typical light lagger, with maybe some kind of odd hoping, but I cant place it. Even so, I really don't care for it. I was kinda hoping for a nice load of hop aroma. 1.5\5
      • taste: moment of truth.............and...............you know what, its really not that bad at all! Extremely neutral, light, with few flavors backing it up. Very grainy malt body dominates the flavor. The Trader Joes pilsner had far more hop characters to it, but then again, this is a light beer. Its not suppose to have a lot of hop character. Compared to Bud light, or platinum, seriously, I give this one a 4\5
      • mouthfeel: light with a heavy dose of carbonation, making it very spritzy and covering its very light body. 4\5
      • overall: This beer really was not made for me, but I'll be honest, I don't hate it. Id be happy drinking it for free at a friends house or at a party. Its easy to consume, and is not offensive at the least, and does count as a light lagger. That's impressive, as to make a light lagger inoffensive is damn hard. After drinking the entire glass, my final rating is............. a 3.75\5. Its not bad at all. I cant say that I like its aftertaste very much at all, but overall, the beer really is ok..........especially for anyone who wants to indulge the fantasy of a “diet beer”.

Overall, Id be happy to play a game of beer pong with this beer!

BA rating (3.45\5), overall(82\100)

Remember the rating is scaled against the light lager category!

Beer style in focus

Now that the review is over, lets look at some of the history of light beer (information gleaned from the Oxford encyclopedia of beer, section "light lagers"). Light beer is defined as any beer that has less caloric content than your standard variety of beer. As a result most of these beers are brewed to have lower levels of alcohol and malt sugars (less alcohol and final remaining sugars mean less calories). The FDA classifies any beer that contains 33% less calories than a standard offering as being light. In a time of health contentious individuals (and cost sensitive consumers), combined with some clever marketing, light beer has taken the largest market share of any variety of beer on the planet.

Their are four ways of making “light beer”. The first is simply to reduce the grain bill of an original recipe. The second is to sell the beer in smaller bottles so it contains fewer calories. The third way is to employ a longer mash time, which will result in a greater amount of fermentable sugars and a lower body. The beer is then diluted with water. The fourth way is to use exogenous brewing enzymes in the mash to break up a great quantity of starches into fermentable sugars. The final product is then diluted with water, and light beer is the final result.

Because light beer by definition has a very low amount of malt sugars and hop character, brewing defects and off flavors will be very noticeable in the final product. This means that near-perfect brewing is required to produce such beers, often requiring a detailed understanding of brewing science and a high-tech brewery to manufacture. As a result, it is actually quite difficult to produce such beers properly.

The third and fourth methods listed above are used primarily to produce most of the beer in this category, and has its origins in Coors light which was first introduced in the 1940's. It was discontinues before WW2, but it was not the end of light beer. The beer saw new life in 1967 with the release of Gablinger's diet beer. The beer was created by chemist Joesph Owades (and was produced by the Rheingold brewery). The beer was not a success, but the brewery Meister Brau responded by making their own line of light beer. Miller took over the brewery and re-branded it as miller light in 1973. Soon Coors relaunched their Coors light brand in 1978, and Bud Light was soon to follow in 1982. 8 years later Bud Light was the best selling beer in the world, and it has largely stayed that way since. Each one of these big three are very similar, but insist that they have some house uniqueness that distinguishes themselves from the other. The lightest beer to be made in this category was low carb beer that used a generous portion of exogenous brewing enzymes to leave very, very little final sugars in the beer. Marketed as low-carb beer, it had a strong early response, but sales slumped back heavily due to its weaker taste and a overall return to standard light lagers. Today it holds a very small portion of the style's market share.

Despite the difficulty of their production and distribution, light beers have dominated the market. I would say this is due to the offering of large bulk beer purchases at lower prices, effective marketing, low caloric content, and its 'un-beer like” flavoring. Time will tell if Light beer will continue to dominate the market as it has since the early 90's

now you know!

Anyho, I think that just about covers this posting. I was very surprised to find a light style that I could enjoy (for what it was) and doubt that Ill find another one that really fits the bill. I think that Id still prefer a Trader Joes Pilsener or a Narragansett to this (for the price). But hey, for a beer with few calories, it does the job better than any other.

A glass in the hand’s worth two on the shelf—
Tipple it down and refresh yourself!

     — Anonymous