"Yes Ed, there is a Santa Claus."
— the delivery guy who dropped off another bottle of Utopias
Beer: Utopias 10th Anniversary
Made by: Boston Beer Co.; Boston, Mass.
Website: samueladams.com
Rating: 5 pints out of 5
Beer review: With all due respect to the rather self-congratulatory Rose Bowl, this here is the granddaddy of them all.
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Samuel Adams' Utopias 10th Anniversary
This year’s rendition of Utopias (pronounced with a hard ‘s’) marks its 10th anniversary. Among the batches blended to make this vintage are some of the original Triple Bock — first released in 1994 — that has been aging for almost 20 years.
Triple Bock, incidentally, is brewed with maple syrup. During an interview after last year's release of Utopias, Samuel Adams brewer Bert Boyce described Utopias' base beer as essentially a strong barley wine that contains a heavy dose of maple syrup.
The anniversary Utopias is aged in single-use bourbon barrels, and the brewery also used tawny port, ruby port and rum barrels as finishing casks. The last edition weighed in at a heady 27 percent ABV, and the 10th anniversary Utopias is topping the scales at a scintillating 29 percent.
I still have some of last year’s Utopias on the shelf, so I compared the aromas side-by-side. This year’s seems a bit nuttier. Sam Adams describes the characteristics the beer is supposed to pull from the aging casks as “dark fruit.”
Again, the aroma alone is intoxicating. It’s full and rich and strong and will stick in the back of your nose and throat. Once in the glass, I think the aroma of the 10th anniversary is even bigger than I remember in the last vintage.
Swirl it in the glass and the beer will slightly coat the sides, but not as heavily, as I recall, as last year’s.
Remember when I cast my provisional ballot for best of 2012? Well, no need for a retraction.
Utopias is powerful from the outset in all ways. The port characteristics are unmistakable and bold. It will instantly send a warming glow down your throat that seeps into your extremities.
You will catch some spice and vanilla notes from the rum barrels. Utopias is elegant and fluid, yet extremely bold, robust and heady akin to a ballroom dancer gliding across the floor with brass knuckles.
As you may recall from the holiday beer column, Smaltz's Jewbelation Sweet 16 measured 16 percent ABV and was just an absolute beast to drink. Almost too big to drink. By comparison, Utopias clocks in at about 29 percent ABV and proves to be a bold, yet elegant beer.
Just a simple reminder: this is more like drinking an after-dinner cordial. Don’t think you can or should drink more than 2, at the absolute most 3 ounces. This is a big beer that makes its point in just a few, wonderful ounces.
And the lengthy aging process in wooden barrels at ambient temperature leaves the beer with no carbonation, so it can sit in the bottle minus the pop top for some time. And if you are able to get your hands on this beer, the closest it should get to your fridge is sitting in the same kitchen across the room.
Stick it in the ice box for a few minutes, and I’ll personally come to your house and confiscate it.
As I’m sitting here penning this column, it occurs to me that trying about an ounce of each side-by-side might be an interesting experiment to see how they compare. Stay tuned.
Ed Sieger's column of beer reviews and local beer news appears every two weeks in EXPOSED. He can be reached at 610-258-7171 or by email at esieger@express-times.com.