Sam Adams Light

Fizzy yellow beer is for wussies. As practicing beer snobs, we know this. Light beer is frat-boy beer, suited only for playing flip cup. Lightweights….last time I played flip cup, I used a 7% Scotch ale malt bomb. But that’s another story. Back to light beer – it’s the Wonder Bread of beer. Devoid of character and depth, a mass-produced, mass-marketed corporate product with about as much flavor as a rice cake.

However, I’m giving Sam Adams Light a try tonight. I recognize that sometimes you just want something crisp, refreshing, and easy-drinking….and if anyone can make light beer taste halfway decent, it’s gotta be the Boston Beer Co.

I’m digging the pour – it actually looks like real beer, with decent foam retention, a furious stream of bubbles, and a golden body with a little touch of red to it. It looks quite unlike the pale-urine color of Bud Light, thankfully.

The bottle’s neck wrapper claims that this is the only light beer made from two-row malt and 100% noble hops. That is a good thing in and of itself, as most light beers are brewed with adjuncts like corn and rice, which serve to lighten and denude the beer even further. Most light beers also boast little or no hop bitterness – and yes, “boast” is the right words, as they are actually marketed as beer without all that nasty hop bitterness. No malt, no hops….why not just drink carbonated water, then?

Anyway, as with most light beers, there’s not a lot going on in the nose here. It smells like lightly toasted crackers, which I guess is still better than Bud Light, which smells like…water.

Taste follows nose, it tastes like lightly toasted crackers, with a mild flowery hop bitterness to balance. Crisp, snappy mouthfeel. Extremely well-attenuated and dry, which it should be.

This is a good light beer. It’s just…kinda boring. This will work when you want to have a drink but don’t want to feel it too much or think about it too much. As for pairings with food, I don’t know, I would just use this as a session beer, or have it with a simple salad or light turkey sandwich. Light beers don’t even truly make great tailgating beers, because the foods you tend to eat at tailgate parties easily overpower them. There are far better beers to pair with grilled chicken, hamburgers, hot dogs, etc.

Still, in my book this is the King of Light Beers.