Sam Adams Cream Stout

Have you ever had anyone hand you a wine glass, beer glass or anything fragile and have them tell you, "These are really expensive don't break it"? Every time someone says that to me my first thought is, "Gee, I sure am glad you said that because the first thing I was going to do after I got my hands on it was smash it." It's kind of like being handed a baby and being told not to drop him/her.

This is just a jab at my friend N who was nice enough to let me use her Riedel beer glasses to pour both the "Jew Beer" and this Sam Adams Cream Stout. She and the Rhino were also nice enough to offer their home to host the Germans and everyone else for Deep Dish Pizza. The Germans baby is sooo cute. New born baby smell is probably one of my favorite smells in the whole world, along with new car, 2006 Zaca Mesa Mourvedre, well made dark Belgian beer, and anything D bakes at home.

As you can see from the photo the stout had a very active HUGE head that took a long time to dissipate and left some really nice lacing on the side of the "very expensive" glass. The aroma was definitely a LOT of roasty toasty coffee and the taste was also a deep roasted coffee flavor. The beer was also not as creamy as I thought a cream stout would be. It tasted a bit thin for my tastes.

On paper this would be a favorite of mine because I love roasty and toasty and coffee but there wasn't enough malt to really balance that slight bitterness. It was akin to a good coffee and eating a bean. Yeah the bean tastes OK but the extra sweetness brought out during the brewing process is what makes that bean's flavors sing. This beer needed that little extra sweetness. Good, but not great.