Review: Samuel Adams Cold Snap (2014)

Review: Samuel Adams Cold Snap (2014)

Sam Adams Cold SnapFor the upcoming spring season, Sam Adams has bottled this experimental brew, originally rolled out at beer fests last October. It’s an unfiltered white ale, a golden wheat blended with ten fruits, flowers, and spices, including grains of paradise, anise, hibiscus, and orange peel. Tasting notes follow.

Cold Snap pours, as expected, a cloudy gold in color. It’s surprisingly woody and a bit piney on the nose, with big cereal notes underneath. Intensely musky, these characteristics — nothing I’d call fruity — obscure any hop character at least at first. On the palate, some lemony fruitiness manages to push through the earth tones, bringing on a malty mid-palate before a kind of tree bark character takes over on the finish. Altogether this beer is a bit muddy, though mega fans of wheat beers may find it more to their liking. I tried both the canned and bottled versions and felt the bottled version was a bit fresher.

5.3% abv.

C+ / $9 per six-pack / samueladams.com

Samuel Adams Cold Snap (2014)

$9
6

Rating

6.0/10

Christopher Null is the founder and editor in chief of Drinkhacker. A veteran writer and journalist, he also operates Null Media, a bespoke content creation company.

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