Reviewed - Samuel Adams Boston Lager

One of the many benefits of occasionally shopping at the continental discount supermarkets - yer Aldis, Lidls and the like - is their frequent themed promotions, where they get in a load of product based (sometimes tenuously) around a theme, load it into racks in the centre aisle and price it to sell. Doesn't always quite hit the mark (witness the time my nearest, very inner-city Lidl store tried in vain for months to shift a load of horse tack and garishly-hued jodhpurs following an optimistic - though horrifically misguided - equestrian-themed promotion), but when it's good, it's really good. 

As it was a couple of weeks ago when we ran across Aldi's USA theme-week. Along with the breakfast cereal and pancake syrup (both of which, I must add, were very good), I was delighted to see (and to pick up and buy) a number of discount-price bottles of Samuel Adams Boston Lager. After all, it's rather special.

If, like me, you find a lot of American beer to be a bit, well, flavourless and disappointing (I'm thinking specifically of you, Coors Light, of the "Damn! That's one watery-tasting beer!" ad...), this beer will be a revelation. Wonderfully full and rich, plenty of hoppy fragrance and bite tempered with a mellow maltiness, and for a beer which identifies itself as a lager, it's got a wonderful complexity and only a fairly gentle fizz to it. Yes, it's still a mass-market beer, but it's one you might actually wish to drink - and brewed as it is from just water, hops, yeast and malt, it's already got a headstart over much of the opposition. Certainly worth a couple of sips, in any case - goes down cool and refreshing in the heat, and I imagine would have enough character and flavour about it to still be worth drinking a few degrees warmer, once Winter draws in and an ice-cold pint's not quite as appealing.

No doubt if you're from the other side of the pond, this will be as familiar (and palatable) as mother's milk to you - and I can fully understand why you sent us Brits the Buds, Millers and the other watery nothingnesses instead. If you're not, I understand it's also available in most decent independent beer shops and also Majestic, apparently. Pick a bottle or two up one time if you get the chance, and give it a try over the usual bland Ameri-piss.

(Apologies for use of stock promo-pic. I did have actual bottles, but I drank them. Sorry.)