12x12 Samuel Adams Winter Break Variety Pack

Beers Included: Cold Brew Coffee Stout, Winter White Ale, Winter Lager, Old Fezzewig 

Purchase Date: 6 December 2025

Initial Impressions

I broke my rules and bought this pack in early November when I was up in New Hampshire for a weekend. It was cold enough that it felt like winter. Not taking tasting notes at that time, I had to go back and buy this one again. 

For some reason I was intrigued by the Cold Brew Coffee Stout. I love dark beers, but generally prefer what I call "stout-flavored-stout". I guess I was excited to see any kind of stout in this sampler. Winter Lager has always been a stalwart; even if the recipe has been changed like other Sam Seasonals.

Interestingly, the marketing company I work for doing brand ambassador work posted Sam Adams tastings with instructions to tell drinkers that Winter White was replacing Winter Lager as Sam's winter seasonal.

Beer, cigar, fresh air and lake views

Old Fezzewig is a beer I look for every year. 

12x12 Market Basket More for Your Dollar Lager

Beers included: Market Basket More for Your Dollar Lager, or is it just Market Basket Lager?

Purchase date: 6 December 2025

Purchase price: $12.99

Initial impressions

As much as I respect the business Market Basket runs, we don't shop there for one simple reason. As Yogi Berra once said, "Nobody goes there, it's too crowded".

This skid was in a store five days after packaging.

If you do not live in New England, it is hard to explain the kind of following the grocery chain Market Basket has. With it's slogan "More for Your Dollar", Market Basket is known for it's low prices, how well the company takes care of its employees, and the terminally squabbling DeMoulas family that owns it all. The first two items lead to the store having as loyal of a following as any store I can think of. That loyalty extends to Market Basket's house brands as well. When More for Your Dollar Lager launched it was a bit of a sensation. I kind of wish I got my hands on some sooner.

12x12 Woodstock Inn Variety Pack

Beers included: Pig's Ear Brown Ale, Lost River, Peachy Wheat Ale and 4000 Footer IPA

Purchase date: 6 September 2025

Purchase price: $16.99

Brewers choice is always fun.

Initial Impressions

Woodstock Inn is the first one of my former accounts to be reviewed in this series. When I worked for Muntons, Woodstock Inn was a steady, if not particularly huge customer. They'd buy a pallet of torrefied wheat per month, and specialty malts including 40L Crystal and Chocolate Malt a little less frequently.

I was excited to find this sampler when I was up in New Hampshire for Jamboree. Having the flagship Pig's Ear Brown Ale included also gave me a great commercial beer for my side-by-side with my Long Leash Brown Ale 

Brew Day and Tasting Notes: Long Leash/North Shore Brewers 2025 Q3 British Brown Ale

When British Brown Ale was drawn as the style for our club's quarterly style and in-club competition, this was an opportunity for another Hombrew Con 2022 rebrew. Whereas Maximillian Lager was brewed for the Muntons booth in the exhibition hall, Long Leash was brewed for my seminar on English Ales. 

Long Leash was one of four batches I brewed for my talk. A new recipe at the time, I developed it to demonstrate my beliefs in recipe development for English ales. A well-crafted English ale should be a base-malt driven beer. Even my English Porter recipe is 87% base malt.

To test my theory I took the porter recipe, replacde the Chocolate Malt with Brown Malt, replaced Wheat Malt with Crystal malt, and replaced the small amount of Extra Dark Crystal in the porter with Chocolate Malt in the brown ale.

12x12 Paulaner Oktoberfest Marzen

Beers Included:  Paulaner Oktoberfest Marzen

Purchase Date: 10 October 2025

Purchase Price: $16.99

Only way to drink a Marzen

Initial Impressions

Like many Americans, my first exposure to the Oktoberfest, or more accurately the Marzen style of beer was domestic craft-brewed examples such as Samuel Adams. It wasn't until the early 2010s when a store I frequented brought in imported examples that I was able to try the beers that are actually servied at Octoberfest. Paulaner was my first favorite. 

No solutions, only tradeoffs… getting back in shape, again

If there has been one silver lining that came from crashing out of the beer industry, no longer traveling and going back to the 9-5 insurance grind, it’s been being able to fall into a routine and get back in the gym for the first time years. 

Memorial Day Murph, 2025. I’ve made a ton of progress even since then

I’ve been back at the gym pretty regularly for over a year now. I’ve definitely gotten stronger and better conditioned. Pounds and inches have been a bit harder to drop. The past couple of months I’ve made an effort to be even more consistent with my workouts, trying to get 7,000 steps in a day, intermittent fasting, drinking at least 80 ounces of water per day, and yes, drinking less beer.

12x12 Tuckerman Pale Ale

Beers included: Tuckerman Pale Ale

Purchase date: 6 September 2025

Purchase price: $16.99

Initial Impressions

When I resolved to start this 12x12 series, and earlier deemed the 12-pack the workhorse of the beer fridge, I wasn't sure if I specified 12-pack cans or not. Even if I had, I still would write the post. Either way I am glad that Tuckerman Pale Ale is the first 12-pack of bottles to be featured. 

Revisiting a pamphlet from Homebrew Con 2019

Hard to believe this was over six years ago, but I was hit with a bit of nostalgia when I found this old Muntons pamphlet from Homebrew Con 2019 in Providence. 

 

Tasting Notes: Maximilian Lager

I was weirdly excited to brew this recipe when I wrote the original brew day post as a stand-alone. I was able to taste the first batch of this recipe at Homebrew Con, but that is not the same thing as being able to enjoy a full pour. Needless to say, I couldn't conduct a side-by-side of that batch either. 

This time I gave the beer a name.

I bought the tins of extract during a Black Friday sale last fall. When I purchased lager yeast for my recent Pale Kellerbier, it only made sense to re-pitch it for a batch that was already in the pipeline. 

The batch did get three weeks to ferment extra cold, before going into a keg for lagering. When I tasted the beer at that time, I picked up some diacetyl. I let the keg warm up to cellar temperature and sit for a week as a crude diacetyl rest. Then the keg lagered all summer until there was space in my keezer to put it on tap. 

Harpoon Summer Sampler 12x12

Beers included: Summer Style, Day Drifter IPA, Harpoon IPA, Camp Wannamango

Purchase Date 3 August 2024

Purchase Price $18.99

Initial Impressions

I didn't set out to buy seasonal sample packs all summer, but summer has always been my favorite beer season, and I found a few I was excited to see. 

12x12 Brooklyn Summer Ale

Beers Included: Brooklyn Summer Ale

Purchase Date: 3 August 2025

Purchase Price: $16.49

Initial Impressions

In the words of Dave Portnoy, "Don't give up on summer!". The beginning of August always brings about the arrival of fall beers. With our hot summer still ongoing and inspired by a text from a friend stocking up on summer beers, I decided to do the same. 

Tasting Notes: North Shore Brewers 2025 Q2 Kellerbier

As much as I prefer the written word, the digital world is moving more toward video all the time. Over the years I have very lightly dabbled in video production. I have no patience for video editing. With that in mind, I went on Facebook Live on Big Brew Day thinking that might be an easier pivot to video when I brewed this batch. 

The tl;dw about the brew is I designed a Helles-recipe that borrowed slightly from my cream ale recipe, the beer got two weeks in primary fermentation before being racked to a keg for keg-conditioning and lagering. 

I was happy to pick up a fresh crowler of Notch Zwickel directly from the brewery for my side-by-side. 

Does craft lager need to exist? Tasting notes: a macro versus micro taste test

Forgive the clickbait title, of course it does. Some of my favorite craft beers and breweries are lagers or lager-focused. What I am asking specifically is does craft American lager need to exist? Pedantically speaking, I am referring to styles 1A American Light Lager and 1B American Lager in the BCJP style-Guidelines. 

More and more craft brewers are making American-style lager. It used to be that craft beer was positioned as an alternative to bland, yellow beer. Other than responding to consumer tastes, what does craft American-style lager have to offer? Are craft brewers making better lagers than the largest lager brewers in the world? If so, is the quality difference significant enough to justify a higher price?

Let’s put it to the test.

Brew Day and Tasting Notes: Summer Somewhere 2025 White Ale

Discontinued beers can be a funny thing. Sometimes they are romanticized by many. Sometimes they are remembered by a few. One beer a lot of friends my age miss that is otherwise forgotten about is Samuel Adams White Ale.

Consider Sam makes numerous Belgian witbiers, I never understood why their original White Ale was discontinued and never brought back. Then after doing some research I found out that White Ale used TEN different spices and botanicals: orange and lemon peel, dried plum, grains of paradise, coriander, anise, hibiscus, rose hips, tamarind, and vanilla. That probably explains it then.

12x12 Review: Wachusett Summer Mix Pack

Beers Included: Summer Ale, Pilsner, Blueberry Ale, Blood Orange Ale

Purchase Date: 21 June 2025

Purchase Price: $15.99

Initial Impressions

Wachusett is always a brewery I've had a soft spot for. In an era before Untappd, one of my early craft beer memories was the inside flap of one of their sample packs was a post card. I cut off the flap, reviewed the beers in the 12-pack, stuck a stamp on the piece of cardboard and mailed it to the brewery in exchange for a prize. The keychain bottle opener I received in the mail was on my keyring for several years. 

12x12 Review: Sierra Nevada Summerfest

Beers Included: Sierra Nevada Summerfest

Purchased: 6 June 2025

Price: $19.99

Initial Impressions 

Craft beer drinkers love to lament discontinued beers. Especially beers that have maybe been declining in sales, or aren’t as widely distributed as it used to be.

With Summerfest we have a rare example of a brewing bringing back a beloved beer. This is one I would pick up every year. Then there were one or two summers where I didn’t see Summerfest. Eventually it was replaced by a forgettable IPA. Since Summerfest came back, I’m happy to report that it’s easy for me to find in Massachusetts again.

Brew Day and Tasting Notes: Crackerjack Cream Ale

After my recent batch of Spring Training Stout, here I'm brewing another one of my house recipes I haven't written about in ten years. 

Look at those beautiful corn flakes.

Like Spring Training Stout, Crackerjack Cream Ale is one of those beers I ask myself why I don't brew more often. Bearing that thought in mind, this still was not a brew I had penciled in for the summer this year. I brewed this for two reasons. Firstly, I committed to making a ten gallon batch and needed to propagate a specific yeast strain. I figured that strain would work really well in this beer. Secondly, my friends from Maine Malt House launched a direct-to-consumer website for homebrewers. Their craft malt is will be perfect in this recipe.

12x12 Review: Samuel Adams Beers of Summer Variety Pack

Beer Included: Summer Ale, Porch Rocker, American Light, Blueberry Lager

Purchased: 31 May 2025

Price: $17.99 minus $5 rebate

Initial Impressions

I didn’t want to review two Samuel Adams 12-packs in a row but I won’t lie, scanning a QR code to receive a $5 rebate swayed me. I was probably going to pick this one up at some point; the rebate nudged me to do it now.

Brew Day: Maximilian Lager (Vienna Lager)

The last Homebrew Con I attended with Muntons was 2022 in Pittsburgh. At the time Muntons had made a lot of exciting updates and additions to their range of homebrew products. The new Muntons Flagship Range featured more modern, American craft beer styles as opposed to traditional English styles. Also released was a range of Premium Malt Extract which included Maris Otter Pale, Wheat, Oat, Sour, Munich and Vienna Malt Extract.

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I brewed 40 gallons of beer for the show and drove all eight kegs from my home outside of Boston to Pittsburgh. Marketing wanted to do a side-by-side of the Flagship Range Hazy IPA kit, the same recipe made as a partial boil/partial mash with the Oat Malt Extract, and the same recipe all grain. All three of the hazies came out great. The kit beer was noticeably the darkest of the three. The partial mash and all grain were very close. I also made a Passionfruit Sour with the Sour Malt extract; that was a recipe designed by the Muntons Product team.

With room for one extra keg, I suggested highlighting one of the other new extracts and ended up brewing a Vienna Lager. 

12x12 Review Samuel Adams Juicy IPA

Beer Included: Samuel Adams Juicy IPA

Purchased: 2 May 2025

Price: $17.99

Initial Impression 

I first tasted Samuel Adams New England IPA Jamaica Plain taproom in Boston back in 2017. This was before the beer was packaged for national distribution. At the time I thought the beer was excellent and if Sam could make an IPA that good at a lower price point than smaller taproom-type breweries, they would be onto something. Would people still buy a $20 4-pack if they could buy something just as good for less in a 12-pack? My comment at the time was "If I can find this fresh in stores its a game changer".

I first saw the new Juicy IPA at Fenway Park

That beer was eventually released in four packs, and I remember liking it if not quite as much as that trial batch. Then Wicked Hazy was released and now Juicy IPA is here. Is this the same beer that has undergone a second rebrand? The ABV and IBU of all three beers are the same. That doesn’t mean the beers aren’t all different in some way. I’ll be approaching this with an open mind.