Cooking With Beer: Samuel Adams Beer Roasted Chicken

Just in time for the release of Samuel Adams Octoberfest, a recipe from the Sam Adams website using the Octoberfest beer for roasted chicken. The recipe as it appears on the website:

Beer Roasted Chicken

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups Samuel Adams® OctoberFest
3-4 pound chicken, cleaned of fat, rinsed, and patted dry
Juice of one lemon
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt (to taste)
1 teaspoon freshly crushed black pepper
1 large clove garlic
1 tablespoon dried sage or thyme (for fresh sage, use 1 teaspoon)
4 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened

Instructions

Rub chicken inside and out with lemon juice. Sprinkle inside with half the salt and pepper. With side of cleaver, mash garlic and remaining salt to form paste and mix with sage and butter. Carefully lift skin on each side of the chicken breast and push some of the mixture under. Rub the remaining mixture over the outside. Tie it up and place the chicken breast side down on well greased rack in a shallow pan. Pour Samuel Adams® OctoberFest into pan and place in 425 degrees F oven for 40 minutes, basting every 10 minutes with beer and pan drippings. Turn breast side up and roast 25 minutes, basting every 8 minutes. The juices should run clear when you puncture the skin at the thigh joint.

Remove from pan and place on a heated platter. Cover with foil and allow to rest 10 minutes before carving. Serve with pan juices or make into gravy.

*****

And now the notes since I am incapable of following a recipe exactly...

• I used a package of bone-in chicken breasts instead of a whole chicken.
• I added a bit of rosemary at my wife's suggestion.
• I used a bottle of Samuel Adams Double Bock in lieu of an Octoberfest.

Other than that, the recipe went off without a hitch. I did not use the dripping for gravy but in retrospect, that sounds like a good idea. The chicken turned out moist and flavorful and I served it with some broccoli rice and steamed vegetables. 

Coaster: Samuel Adams

In honor of the 25th anniversary of Boston Beer Company, I dug up one of these old Sam Adams coaster from the mid-90's. As you can see, the logo still shows the original stoic Sam Adams instead of the current "Party Patriot" that they use today. I probably got this from one of the Sam Adams airport pubs which were in their infancy at the time and kind of novel. Now, they are all over.

On the other side, there were various listings of awards won by the famous Boston Lager.

25 Beers of Christmas '08, Day 22: 1997 Samuel Adams Triple Bock

Brewery: Boston Beer Company
Style: Triple Bock (???)
ABV: 17.5%
Date Poured: December 2008

Samuel Adams Triple Bock was brewed in three vintages: 1994, 1995 and 1997. Even though it hasn't been brewed for over ten years, the cobalt blue bottles are still sporadically found on liquor store shelves. This was probably the first real "extreme" beer. It was brewed with maple syrup and aged for some months in oak whiskey barrels. At the time, it was considered to be the strongest beer in the world. This bottle is a 1997 vintage and was purchased about five years ago and has been int he cellar even since.

Dark brown in the glass with no head at all but nice "legs" like a port or sherry would have. Lots of oaky, whiskey components in the aroma. A hint of molasses and vanilla. Strong and sweet.

Rich malt, dark fruit and a scorching alcohol flavor. Very, very sweet. Distinct whiskey flavor. Oak and vanilla. A hint of the maple syrup in the aftertaste as well as a nice alcohol burn. Very sticky after the heat subsides.

This is a sipper, treat it like a cognac instead of a beer. I only drink this about three ounces at a time. I still like it though. I like what the age has done to it and I like the overall flavors this beer is delivering. Good stuff.


Samuel Adams

25 Beers of Christmas '08, Day 12: 2007 Samuel Adams Old Fezziwig

Brewer: Boston Beer Company
Style: Winter Warmer
ABV: 5.6%
Date Poured: December 2008

Old Fezziwig is another beer that I manage to pick up every Christmas season but the fruity and caramel notes always made me wonder how it would age. It's not a great candidate at only 5.6% ABV but I put a bottle away last Christmas to see what would happen anyway.

Pours reddish brown with a thin tan head and sheeting lace. Smells of fruity caramel malt. There's still the fruity and caramel malt in the mouth but there's clear signs of oxidation and toffee. The oxidation really overwhelms the other flavors, it's a mess now.

Nut fresh this is a really great beer. It's fruity and malty and finishes with sweet spice. It's very well balanced and a great Christmas beer. Don't let my failed experiment put you off.

Boston Beer

Recipe: Samuel Adams Oktoberfest Porkchops with Mustard and Onions

I cook with beer on a fairly regular basis and one of my favorites is one I found years ago on the Samuel Adams (Boston Beer) website for Oktoberfest Porkchops. Recently, I went to look for the recipe and couldn't find it. To my dismay, I then found out that the recipe was no longer on the Sam Adams website either!

Luckily, a liquor store in Minnesota called Sutler's posted the recipe and I was able to get it back.

So, because a) I really love this recipe and want to share it and b) I want to save it somewhere I can find it, here is the recipe for Samuel Adams Oktoberfest Porkchops! (one modification I make if using Sam Adams Double Bock when I can get it...)

Ingredients:
4 thick cut rib pork chops 2-3 lbs. total
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp dried dill
1 tsp dry mustard
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup Samuel Adams Oktoberfest beer
1 Tbsp cider vinegar
1 Tbsp coarse grained mustard
1/2 cup sour cream
chopped fresh dill or chives

Directions:
Season the chops generously with salt, pepper, dill, and dry mustard. Heat the oil in a heavy 12 inch skillet over high heat and brown the chops for 2-3 minutes on each side. Remove the chops and all but 2 tablespoons of fat from the pan. Put in the onion, cover and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft. Arrange the chops on top of the onions, pour in the beer and vinegar, cover, and simmer for around 30 minutes until meat is quite tender. Transfer the chops to a platter and keep warm. Add the remaining mustard to the pan and reduce the sauce to a syrupy consistency. Turn off the heat, stir in the sour cream, and pour the sauce over the chops. Garnish with dill or chives.

Enjoy!

Tasting Notes: 2008 Longshot Beers

Brewery: Boston Beer Company
Date Poured: March 2008


Some notes from last month on the Sam Adams 2009 Longshot beers. More on the Longshot homebrew contest can be found here.

(The Longshot box usually contains 2 bottles of each winning beer. However, one of the winners this year was a Double IPA and Boston Beer was unable to secure the hops during this year's shortage. So one of the winning beers was postponed and 3 bottles of each of the following beer was included.)


First up is a weizenbock brewed by Rodney Kibzey of Chicago.

It's a murky opaque mahogany with a dense and creamy brown head that leaves sheeting lace behind. Sweet strong aroma of ripe banana and cloves, rich maltiness and just a hint of lemon in the nose.


Tastes of rich malt, banana estery flavors, lemony and spicy, especially clove and pepper. Rounded body and not nearly as full and sticky as I expected. Fairly clean finish for a weizenbock but a light sticky malt finish and aftertaste lets you know the beer was there.

Really, really good beer. It's got to be right up there behind Aventinus as the second best weizenbock I've tasted and there's certainly no shame in finishing second to that beer.

The next beer is called a Grape Pale Ale by the winning brewer Lily Hess. As the name implies, it's a pale ale brewed with grapes.

Pours a pale orangey copper with a frothy ivory head. Smell is quite sweet and grapey with the faint aroma of pale malt.


I was expecting this ale to be sweet in my mouth but it's actually quite dry with just a touch of sweetness in the finish. It's crisp and light, subtle and bright.


I wasn't expecting much from the grape ale as I don't like fruit in my beer as a rule. However it was surprisingly tasty and refreshing. I won't put it on par with the excellent weizenbock but it was no slouch either.




Boston Beer Company

Sam Adams Glass, Grätzer and Belgium

I've been meaning to write a little note about these new Samuel Adams glasses for awhile and now is as good a time as any. Boston Beer released these glasses in 2007 after (supposedly) painstaking scientific research on what would be the best glass for their flagship beer. I received two of the glasses as a thank you for being a founding subscriber to Beer Advocate magazine.

I don't know if all the claims and marketing are accurate but there are two great things about the glass. First, it absolutely delivers the hop aromas to your nose better than most glasses, Second, it feels great in your hand, very ergo friendly. They are great glasses for any kind of lager (even doppelbocks) and light ales and since I was short on good lager glasses, they get quite a workout at my place. Recommended.

*****

I can't say enough about how great it is to read the beery gems mined over at Shut Up About Barclay Perkins. I have always considered myself to be fairly knowledgeable about beer styles and the history of brewing but Ron keeps digging up new styles and redefining the old ones. I'm especially enjoying the posts about the Polish style Grodziskie/Grätzer.

*****

Looks like Tim Webb will have a new edition of the Good Guide to Belgian Beer out soon. Now I have to get the new one!

25 Beers of Christmas, Day 24: Samuel Adams Cranberry Lambic

I had to scuttle the original beer scheduled for tonight. It was a 2004 version of SweetWater Festive Ale. When fresh, this beer is a bit heavy on the spice so I thought it might age well. I was wrong. It was completely spoiled. Undrinkable.

So I dipped into the Samuel Adams Winter Mix yet again and snagged a bottle of Cranberry Lambic. I don't have the loathing for this beer that many "beer geeks" do but it does usually linger and I end up using it for cooking more often than not. Although it is not a true lambic, the Sam Adams website states that they do use a strain of wild yeast in the brewing process. It's a sessionable beer at 4.6% ABV.

It a pleasant orangey copper in the glass with a frothy but quickly dissipating ivory head. The smell is the unusual part. It sour but sweet. But not too sweet as the sweetness imparts a bit of tartness. There's a sour, bready wheat malt. But overall it is sweet. It's not puckering at all. But still...there's a tad of sourness. It's odd but not nearly as complex as I'm making it out.

That hint of sourness disappears in the taste. It's sweetish but not overpoweringly so. There's some tartness but it's certainly not sour. A bit of graininess or cereal like flavors from the malt. It finishes surprisingly clean, not a lot of residual stickiness in the mouth.

It's really not so bad but it's certainly not my style. But adding it to your chili? It adds a nice flavor and some body...

Boston Beer

25 Beers of Christmas, Day 21: Samuel Adams Winter Lager

Yet another winter tradition from the Sam Adam Holiday Mix Pack. It's a bock beer (single bocks are a rarity around these parts), seems to be spiced and weighs in at 5.8% ABV.

It pours deep amber with a lacy off-white head. It smells lightly spicy. Orange aromas perhaps? Also some lightly malty sweet aromas.

Taste is malty and sweet, much maltier than I remember this beer being before. Fruity undertones with hints of citrus and cloves. Medium bodied and sticky with a caramel and molasses aftertaste with a moderately hoppy finish to balance it out. Very drinkable with a suprisingly full body.

I may have sold this beer short in the past. This is damn good. Worth a second look.

Boston Beer Company

25 Beers of Christmas, Day 16: Samuel Adams Holiday Porter

The Samuel Adams Winter Classics Mix Pack is a tradition and has been in my house for about 14 years. The selection has changed over the years and three years ago Boston Beer added the Holiday Porter which at the time was the only porter in their lineup. (They have since revived their excellent Honey Porter.) It's an easy drinker clocking in at 5.9% ABV.

It pours a dark brown with a frothy and dense light brown head. Lots of fine lacing. A sweet malty smell but also some significant hops in the aroma as well. Smoky chocolate in the nose too.

Very creamy mocha taste takes over the palate. Bitter and roasty notes are prominent. Roasty bitter finish as well.

If you like your porters to deliver some of that roastiness from the malt (and I do) you'll like this porter. It does deliever some balancing creaminess too.

Boston Beer

Out of the Cellar: Samuel Adams Double Bock

Brewer: Boston Beer Company

Poured: Jul 2007

Aged: 1 year and 2 years

ABV%: 8.8%

This is one of those accidental cellarings, at least accidental for the beers to be cellared this long. I have heard that Samuel Adams Double Bock is a beautiful thing with a year of cellaring on it so against my better judgement I put some away last spring...and the spring before that.

In my experience, doppelbocks don't age well, nor or they meant to. I experimented with Celebrator and it goes from being a world class beer to pure garbage in about nine months. However, I have heard that Samuel Adams Double Bock really shines with a year on it so I decided to find out.

So, for this tasting, I have a bottle that has been aged for one year and a bottle that I forgot about that has been aged for two years. Into the fray...

The first thing I notice is the older one is noticeably darker. The second thing I notice is that the older one has a more intense aroma, more fruity, a richer toffee smell. In the younger version, all the above is evident, just not to the same level and there is still a noticeable alcohol aroma.

Upon drinking them, the two-year old version has no discernible alcohol and the mouth seem thinner. Unfortunately, there is also a wet cardboard flavor that pretty much obscures a lot of the "good" flavors of the oxidation. No shocker here but the two year old sample is undrinkable.

On to the bottle with one year on it. The alcohol flavors are muted a bit when compared to fresh but there are more rich toffee and dark fruit notes. Rich caramel malt, big and sticky mouth. It's not as rough around the edges as when fresh...but to my tastes it's still better fresh. Maybe a happy medium (6 months) would be the right balance.

Well, all in all, I think I'll drink my doppelbocks fresh but if there is one that will improve (for some) it would be this one.

Beer Coaster: Samuel Adams

I picked this coaster up in the early 90's, probably at one of the Sam Adams pubs in an airport.



Nothing really great about this coaster but it does feature the old stoic Sam Adams instead of the newer mug-raising "party patriot" Sam Adams that graces the bottles now. I prefer the version pictured above.

Tasting Notes: Samuel Adams Honey Porter

Brewer: Boston Beer Company
Poured: June 2007
ABV: 5.45%

Way back in the early 90's, Samuel Adams Honey Porter was one of my regulars. I picked it up whenever I could and thought it was one of the best beers in the world. And why not? It was flavorful enough to satisfy my burgeoning appetite for craft brew but not so strong that I couldn't down a sixer at a party without completely losing my senses. I could also be reasonably assured that it's strange appearance would put off the average partygoer enough that no one would drink my stash. It accompanied me everywhere a good beer was needed. It was my regular, man!

It started getting harder to find out in Chicago by '96 and by the time I got back from my first naval cruise (mid-'97), it was nowhere to be seen, at least not in Florida. Boston Beer discontinued it and I thought it was gone forever.

Surprisingly, Boston Beer brought back the Honey Porter for the latest "Drinker's Choice" promotion and it won the consumer vote. For the first time in ten years, I was going to get to taste one of my old favorites. It was out in mixed Brewmaster's Choice sixers but I recently found it in dedicated sixers and picked some up.

This porter is dark brown with a dense, frothy tan head. Lots of thick lacing on the glass. Sweet roasted malt and caramel aromas as well as hints of honey waft up from the glass. Sweet and roasty in the mouth. Light honey in the finish balanced well with the hops (East Kent Goldings according to the bottle). It's got a smooth mouth and a lightly roasty aftertaste.

It's back and as good as ever. It's gong to be one of my regulars again. Amen. Recommended.

New England Trip, July 2005: Day 1, Boston

I flew into Logan Friday morning. I was originally going to meet my buddy Dave that morning for a quick Boston pub crawl before heading out to Jamaica Plain for the Beer Advocate Boston Beer Company Tour but work responsibilities prevented him from coming down from Maine that day. I was left to my own devices and with an afternoon to kill, I headed to the T to hit a couple brewpubs before the tour began that evening.

First on my list was Cambridge Brewing Company which enjoyed a very good reputation in Boston and deservedly so. I ordered the salmon chowder (which really hit the spot) and a draft of Three Threads. Three Threads is a porter made in the traditional way by blending three different beers together. In this case, they blended a brown ale, a sour Flemish-style ale and their Red God IPA. While this made for a porter that starts a bit sour, after a couple sips that sourness seems to fade and a roasted coffee bitterness takes over. Some persistent hoppiness too. The flavors were all very distinct at first but them began to mesh into a smooth drinking, amazing porter. If you ever have a chance to try a traditionally blended porter, I highly recommend it. It really gives you a new perspective on flavors and blending beers.

I hopped back on the T and headed down to the Fenway Park area, first to visit the Boston Beer Works location and second to tour Fenway Park. The Beer Works was nearly empty and I thought I had time for a couple drafts. Unfortunately the service was so slow, I barely had time to drink one in the 45 minutes I was there. It wasn't the bartender's fault as she was covering the bar area and a couple tables in the next room as well. Many taps were available; there were 10 house beers on tap. I had a Back Bay IPA from the tap which had a biting herbal bitterness and was really tasty but I had no time for another as the Green Monster was calling.

After the (very cool) tour of Fenway Park, I hopped on the T and headed over to Jamaica Plain where the Sam Adams Brewhouse is housed in the old Haffenreffer Brewery building. While most of Boston Brewing’s production takes place in Cincinnati and other breweries through contract, this is the test brewery and produces a lot of special releases especially in keg form for the Boston market.

It had been arranged by Beer Advocate to have Jim Koch give us the tour that day. While we waited for everyone to arrive, Jim sent some pitchers of Boston Lager and Summer Ale for everyone to enjoy.

From watching him on the Sam Adams commercials, you wouldn’t think that Jim Koch would be a dynamic public speaker but he is so passionate and so knowledgeable about his product that he is very entertaining to listen to.

He talked about the history of Boston Beer, the colorful characters that used to populate Jamaica Plain when they first bought the property, passed around a bunch of fresh hops and then showed off the brew kettles. “I could explain the intricacies of the brewing process but you guys know how that works. Would you rather just head to the tasting room?”, asked Jim. A cheer of approval from the crowd and we were on our way.

First up, Jim brought out glasses of the Boston Lager. He said that he doesn't believe that any of the beers that Boston Beer have brewed have ever surpassed the first beer they brewed. In a weird way, I think he really believes that.

Next were two beers that were soon to be unveiled in the first "Drinker's Choice" promotion for later that year. The first was a crisp and hoppy Bohemian style pilsener that I liked quite a bit. The second was a brown ale (that eventually won; it's now a regular product) that Jim kept tasting and saying "it's not ready yet" but he let us try anyway. I would have voted for the pilsener regardless.

Imagine this scene: Jim Koch carrying a tray with dozens of snifters containing Utopias and placing them on your table. I don't have to imagine this because that is exactly what happened next. Utopias famously sells for over $100 a bottle so this was indeed a rare treat. It drinks more like a sherry (Jim Koch described it in terms of a cognac but I've never had cognac...), it's rich and oaky with vanilla and toffee notes. No head whatsoever. Again, if I didn't know it was a beer, I would guess it's an aged sherry. I had my snifter and another given to me by a lady who did not want to try hers.


I met some pretty nice people, especially a gentleman from Denmark and his wife. I found the Alstrom Brothers and thanked them for the event. They asked if I wanted to continue the festivities over at Doyle's Cafe but I needed to go get some sleep and get on the road the next morning. I was on my way to Bangor the next day...