Samuel Adams Long Shot Double IPA

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

what a sly bald little bastard on the label, you made a fine tasty brew!! one of the nicest things to ever come from S.A, well, in the everyday drinking spectrums.... . . fantastic white foam, killer lacing.. . .caramel dipped hops with a touch of pine in the nose .. . sunshine and farts: candy! .. .. big bitterness BUT massively smooth.. . . is this really 9% .. . a buck buck! .. . . cook cook a coo ! .. . .fantastic stuff, i would buy sixers of this if it was made all the time by sammy! .. . ghost dad? .. . deserved of the one spot by Mr.McDale! . .. "would you buy a car from louis bobo??"

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Presentation: It was poured from a brown 12oz bottle into a pint glass. Appearance: The body has a hazy appearance and a nice orange amber color. Its head is bright white, tall and slow fading. It eventually settles down to just a thin ring of lace and each sip is marked by a ring of lace on the glass. Smell: The aroma has a big powerful hit of pine and resiny hops in the nose. Taste/Mouth: Its flavor is dominated by a powerful and intense hop presence over sweet boozy and roasted malt notes. There are notes of pine, resin, citrus and some floral hops throughout with plenty of bitterness that hangs onto the palate well into and after the finish. The texture is thick, full bodied and slick with light carbonation. Notes: Overall its hop complexity becomes very one dimensional after half way though the bottle.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

I think that this is a really nice gateway IIPA for those just starting out. While it’s hoppy, it just seems like it’s lost somehow and unrefined. It’s at odds with the lack of malt to support the hops, so instead of being a great IIPA, it winds up being barely passable. It pours out a deep orange/amber color, 1/2 inch white head with nice carbonation. Aroma is piney hops, grapefruit and a touch aspriny. Flavor has the biting pine hops which just seemed so ragged. No malt profile to keep it in harmony with the beer. Reminded me of a hop tea. A lingering bitter finish. Just okay.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 10 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 9 | Overall: 9

Sampled from bottle. Now this is a fine IIPA! Totally worth getting the mixed sixer just so you can try this one beer. A copper IIPA with an aggressive hop nose (catty, piney, citrus, floral) and flavor. It's nicely bitter and the bready malt backbone stands up just fine to all the hop additions. Well done!

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Nice surprise from Sam Adams, this is a nice IIPA. Aroma of massive amounts of grapefruit and pine, some malts manage to peek through as well. It pours a deep and hazy orange body, with a nice head that leaves some heavy lace. Flavor is mostly grapefruit and pine, at the end there are some bready, and caramel malts thrown in for good measure. I agree with funk, i wish this was sold by itself in a sixer, but its still worth getting the mixed pack to try it, and the others were decent as well.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

A solid, but not aggressive pour produces a six finger thick, light amber tinged, tan colored head. The beer is quite hazy, and in fact had a ton of wispy sediment at the bottom of the bottle. The beer is red amber color that shows an lightly hazed, but not opaque, copper amber color. The aroma is quite hoppy but has a bit of a green, vegetal edge to it. Otherwise though it is dominated by fruity hop notes of lychee, sweet grapefruit and intense tangerine as well as an herbal, sort of hemp oil like note that is fairly light, or at least the up front fruitiness makes it harder to notice. Definitely intensely hoppy like a good Double IPA should be, but somehow it seems a little dirty in its hop character, though this is not necessarily a bad thing in a hoppy beer.

I breathe in as I take my first sip and I get an intense, dank, herbal, hemp-oil note that lingers on the tongue and gets fairly intense in the lingering finish. The finish also has a biting bitterness (though the bitterness in this beer is actually on the low side for a insanely hopped beer) and a gritty astringent hop leaf note. This has a nice hop fruitiness as well, though it ultimately is drowned out by the aggressive finish, with notes of tangerine, tropical fruit lychee and kumquat peel. Other hop notes of menthol and pine join the hemp-oil note. The body is light enough that this hits the quaffability that I like to see in the style, though the hops are a bit harsh to be truly quaffable.

While on the smooth side, this definitely is quite a dank, dirty Double IPA. This doesn’t have nearly the intense hop balance of Pliny the Elder, but it is still a solid, incredibly inexpensive, hop fix for the hop head.

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Pours a very hazy orange with a creamy, off-white head. Aroma is excellent--full of grapefruit and pine with some bready notes. Reminds me a little of Hopslam. Taste is very bitter; citrusy and piney/floral hops dominate from beginning to end with just a hint of malt and sweetness detectable. Overall, an excellent IPA and one I wish could be purchased on its own rather than in the Longshot sampler.

Aroma: 10 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 9 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Abundant citrus nose packed full of grapefruit. Spruce and pine accents followed by thick malty caramel and bread aromas. Hazy golden orange/light copper color that sparkles in the glass. The head remains for the duration and is fluffy with a light khaki color. Heavy rings of lacing stick to all sides of the glass. This beer looks incredible. Full bodied, chewy and very bitter with a sweet, dry finish. I know I should slow down, but it's so good and drinks with such ease, just figure it'll be an early evening for me. Flavorful with layers of hoppy goodness. You taste the grapefruit and evergreen, but then a mixture of flowers and a biting green almost noble hop aspect enters the equation. A touch catty and very resinous. After the hop assault fades a hearty dose of fairly sweetened malts come forward providing a creamy caramel and biscuit taste. It's juicy, pucker inducing, filling, and yes it's even malty. This is a wonderful offering.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 8

Sampled on 4/25/2009. This Double IPA pours a slightly cloudy orange gold color from a 12oz bottle. Small sized white foamy head. The aroma is citrusy, piney and floral hops with some caramel malts.. A medium bodied Imperial IPA. The malts are caramel and sweet. There is more than a touch of fruitiness, citrus and orange. The hops are very prevalent in this beer, floral, citrusy and piney. Lively carbonation. A big juicy west coast style IPA. Can one say Pliney? If you live in an area where you can’t get Pliney try this one. A very bitter IPA. See folks you CAN make a mass-produced Double IPA. Nice beer. Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is clean and smooth. Aftertaste is bitter and some more bitterness