Samuel Adams Thirteenth Hour

 The Samuel Adams Barrel Room Collection is a series of beers brewed in Belgian Style. Since today is International Stout Day I figured I would share the latest addition to Sam Adams' Barrel Room Collection, Thirteenth Hour. Not so fond of Belgians myself, I was weary of this purchase but for the sake of experimenting and the barrel room collection just hitting New Jersey, I couldn't resist buying it. Thirteenth Hour is a dark Belgian style stout brewed with dark malts, spices, coffee, roasted chocolate, and aged in oak to make a damn good  beer. The fancy tag around the neck of the bottle stated to pour into a traditional glass. Going against the grain I opted to pour it into my Boston Lager glass for photography sake. It was a probably a bad move on my part to fully enjoy the beer but what's done is done. I don't have Doc Brown to take me back in time.

The Barrel Room Collection is a unique set of beers and gets all it's inspiration from Belgium. The way they brew, age, and condition their beers produces some of the most unique and wild flavors you can find in a beer. Sam Adams is on point as far as keeping true to style when it comes to Belgians. They even cultivated their own wild yeast strain for these Barrel Room brews called, Kosmic Mother Funk or simply KMF. Different woods were experimented with for the aging process and it was decided that oak brandy barrels would be the obvious choice for these beers.

Having had the Thirteenth Hour and reading up on the Barrel Room Collection, I am more intrigued to try some more of these Belgian brews, now knowing what goes into making them. I'm not too sure on the availability of these brews so if you see them buy them up, you won't be disappointed.

Boston Beer Company

-Brian