beer_name: Samuel Adams Boston Lager
text: This beer is a gleaming, coppery shade of auburn that almost reminds one of autumn leaves. There is an adamant stream of carbonation that seems virtually infinite. The beer's appearance is also well-proportioned: a terrific amount of cream-white mousse tops off the last couple inches and ensures all those little bubbles are packed in air-tight. If you're used to plain, mass-produced lagers than the aroma on the SABL might just knock your socks off. If you're already familiar with what craft beer has to offer then chances are you'll consider it nothing more than average. It has a delicate (but delicious) sweetness with notes of toasty, grainy bread and a 'green' Noble-hop pungency. Mmmm. That hoppiness is uncharacteristically assertive for a Vienna lager (then again this is an American rendition). It lends very subtle - but definite - vegetable, floral and citrusy notes, the result being a patented flavour I can always identify with this beer. The malts, of which there is a satisfyingly sufficient amount, smack of caramel and freshly-baked whole grain bread. It's like a sweet pastry topped with citrus shavings. As well as the impressive amount of aromas and flavours, this has (especially for a lager) a lexicon of textures as well. The cookie-like maltiness, doughy and chewy, is typical of pale and Munich malts. It makes the beer filling and provides a lovely residual sweetness. The Vienna malt contributes a little dose of richness and enhances the depth of the flavour as much as it does the deepness of the colour. It's equally refreshing as it is flavourful. Like the Mrzen/Oktoberfest beers that popularized the style, Vienna Lagers make excellent fall-time drinks. Their crisp hop bitterness and nearly limitless quaffability make them great candidates for those still considerably warm autumn days while the reddish-brown colour, the more flavourful maltiness and filling body make them also well suited to the cooler nights that inevitably follow.