Sam Adams is certainly no longer a microbrewer (over 150 million liters of beer a year!), but has managed to maintain a reputation for consistently high quality beer. All the Germans I know love to drink Sam Adams while visiting the U.S. - enough said. The brewer has expanded into specialty/seasonal beers too, some of which are historical types (e.g., Dunkelweizen, Summer Ale, Octoberfest) and some of which are distinctly American reincarnations of traditional brews (e.g., Chocolate Bock, Harvest Pumpkin Ale, Cream Stout).
An interesting development is their collaboration with Weihenstephan to make a new beer style. Weihenstephan is the oldest still-operating brewery in the world. It lies north of Munich about 30 minutes in the Bavarian town of Freising. It not only has a brewery, but is part of the Technical University of Munich and houses a center for the study of brewing! (I should have majored in that rather than mechanical engineering...) Having started brewing in 1040 as an abbey, you could say that beer is a religion here.
Weihenstephan Ad: "Thirst for life"... "The origin of beer"
Sam Adams and Weihenstephan have developed a champagne-style beer. Called "Infinium" (a little pretentious for my taste) it's an interesting mix of German conservatism and tradition, and American desire for something new. The beer has higher alcohol content and comes in champagne-like bottles, but is supposed to keep the malty/hops mix of a good beer. There are other high-alcohol beers made, but this has small-bubble champagne feel.
Technically, this is an ale rather than a lager, which makes sense because the original Bavarian (and Weihenstephan) beers were wheat ales rather than lagers. They actually use a combination of German ale yeasts and Belgian ale yeasts to get the high alcohol content, which result in the tiny bubbles and taste artifacts.
It was limited release for the 2010 holiday season, so it remains to be seen if it is brewed again.
I normally don't like to post blatant ads, but it's easier to let Sam Adams explain it:
part 2:
and part 3:
We can't add it to the beer tournament, but Frau A and I will try it and blog it. If you have tried it, let us know what you think!