Samuel Adams, the biggest craft brewer by far, is not known for their limited batches of beer. In fact, there are many who argue that they’re no longer a craft brewer at all. Well, to that, we say “No way!” The problem is, when you think Samuel Adams, you probably think seasonals at best and Boston Lager for the most part. To counter that, though, they’ve recently released a series of four limited run brews, each labeled “Batch No. 1.” It seems they might be sick of the criticism and they’re looking to prove the detractors wrong. Or maybe they just wanted to have some fun and brew some new beer. Either way, we’re excited to try them and see how they measure up. The first we’re going to try is the Samuel Adams Tasman Red IPA made with Tasmanian hops (hence the name). Read on to see our thoughts on the brew.

Red is putting it lightly (literally). If you hold Tasman Red up to the light you’ll barely see red tinges around the edges. This beer is dark brown...or at least brick red...very brick red. A bone colored two finger head forms on top and reduces itself, over the course of about a minute, to bits of floating foam with lacing left all over the glass.

You can tell from the smell that this is going to be a serious beer. At first you can smell dank, resinous hops. It’s not overpowering, but it’s there and it’s strong. In parallel, though, you smell some sweet malt, which lets us know this isn’t going to be a bone dry hop-water beer. There’s definitely something to this brew, so let’s dive in!

Yep, it’s an IPA! Up front you get extremely smooth hop bitterness and clean pine. This is quickly followed by malt that has that roasty, dark flavor but it doesn’t have any of the bitterness you’d normally expect. This is great as the hops do plenty fine in the bittering department. They don’t need any help! If you were to hand this beer to me, I’d possibly guess it was a smooth porter mixed with an IPA. With all this said, it’s quite tasty.

This is a very interesting take on the IPA style and we’re stoked that Samuel Adams did something a bit different. The piney hops goes very well with the smooth, roasty malt. There’s a million great IPAs out there, but this one cuts through the noise by doing it in a different way. It’s got the hop bitterness. It’s got the smell, with every sip you can’t miss it. It’s got great hop flavor, pine and citrus.

After this one, I’m excited to try the other three brews in this small batch Samuel Adams series.

I picked this bottle up at Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont.

I’ve been wanting to try this beer since I first heard about it. I love Porters, I love Taza Chocolate so on paper this beer was perfect for me. The Porter Square Porter pours a deep dark brown with a creamy tan head. There’s an excellent earthy aroma to the beer, and while there’s hints of cocoa it doesn’t smell overly chocolaty. I chilled the beer around 50 degrees, I find that a lot of chocolate beers tend to open up around this temperature and it was spot on for this beer. The depth of flavor to the malt is really what sold me on this, it’s just insanely smooth and roasty. There’s oats and wheat in addition to the traditional pale and roasted malts, something I can’t recall having in any other porter I’ve tried. Those additions are what give this beer it’s smoothness.

The chocolate is imparted by use of nibs, bits of actual cocoa bean, and a result the chocolate flavor imparted is subtle and extremely balanced. The finish is smooth with with roasted nutty flavors and just a slight hint of chocolate. I brought a bottle of this over to a friends place, planning on sharing with friends...I should have brought more than one, it was gone within minutes with almost everyone raving about it. Do yourself a favor and pick this up if you can.