Norse Legend

Good Timing[good tahy-ming]: The irony of spending the weekend in Boston and coming home to find beer from the Boston Beer Company on the front porch.

I realize I'm not even into Part Deux of our Boston weekend, but this couldn't wait.  Unbeknownst to me, the Samuel Adams Single Batch series has continued.  I'm pretty stoked.

In a nice note from Jennifer Glanville, the manager of the Samuel Adams Boston Brewery, Jennifer talks of the excitement of experimentation and the fruits of the Sam Adams Brewer's imagination: the Single Batch Series.  I couldn't agree more.  Perhaps my view is slightly amplified after having just spent some time at the brewery, but in reality, I think it is right on par.  Perhaps more, it might have been the opportunity to taste some of that "experimentation" and let me tell you, wow.  I wish my homebrew was one quarter as good.

Even though Samuel Adams has about 1% of the overall beer market, they take it upon themselves to entertain an even smaller percentage who aren't afraid to cozy up to a 22 oz bottle of something rarely seen and seldom tasted.  For this, I salute them.

Enter: Norse Legend.  Norse Legend is a sahti style and according to Jennifer, was brewed predominately by women.   In order to duplicate this, it's looking like the Backyard Brewing Society needs to start kissing up to our wives.

For a more in-depth look of the sahti style, something I knew little about, I suggest taking a look at this article by the late and great beer hunter, Michael Jackson.   Sahti traditionally included the use of juniper berries.  Back "in the day", this meant putting open casks under juniper bushes.  Every batch was different to a degree of chance.

Crafting Norse Legend involved cycles of experimentation and ended up being a nine year pursuit of Jennifer's, which finally found it's place in the Single Batch Series Collection.  Her passion is contagious and so is the beer.

In the nose, I immediately detected a sour note.  I'm guessing the berries.  From there, my first taste immediately filled me with tastes of more berries, pine and earthiness.  The mouthfeel was delightfully full.  I love that.  Towards the end, I felt that the berries really held on to my tongue.  They lingered.  Things changed though.  Over the next half hour as the beer warmed, I found the berries taking a little bit more of a back seat and the sweet malt moving forward.  Wow, a great beer.

So, what would I pair Norse Legend with?  Easy, parsley and garlic stuffed rotisserie chicken.

Great beer requires a great dinner.

My thanks to Jennifer for sharing her thoughts.  As she gives her perspective from the inside out, I look forward to sharing my perspective from the outside in.  Boston Beer is a pretty amazing place and true to form carries out some amazing experimentations, again.

Note: Norse Legend was provided to me by Boston Beer.  The opinion that I liked it a lot, was provided by me, as was the chicken, grill. bottle opener and deck.