The Samuel Adams Longshot Competition is one of the coolest things happening in homebrewing. This competition occurs once a year and is open to anyone (including Samuel Adams employees, who are given a homebrewing kit upon hiring). The winner of the competition gets his or her beer brewed and distributed by Samuel Adams (Boston Brewing Company). They even put an illustration of the brewer on the label!

I received a 6 pack of this beer as an early birthday present (September 30th) and will be posting tasting notes from the 3-way tie winning beers from in the 2008 competition.

About the 2008 winners from the Samuel Adams website:

Congratulations to Alex Drobshoff of California for being crowned the 2008 Samuel Adams® American Homebrew Contest™ National Champion! Alex’s Traditional Bock will appear in the LongShot® mix 6-pack beginning in April alongside Mike McDole’s Double IPA.

The third brew in the Longshot package will be a Cranberry Wit created by Carissa Sweigart, winner of the Samuel Adams employee homebrew competition. Carissa’s beer was chosen by over 1,111 beer lovers at the 2008 Great American Beer Festival™ from among the 3 employee homebrew finalist. Congratulations Carissa!

This year’s LongShot competition yielded 1,367 entries from just under 1,000 homebrewers! This is proof positive that homebrewing is alive and well!

Cranberry Wit

This one is brewed by the Samuel Adams employee Carissa Sweigart from Massachusetts.

From the bottle packaging…

Brewed with ingredients signature to Carissa’s home of Massachusetts this Cranberry Wit is spiced with a blend of cinnamon, orange peel, coriander and grains of paradise, and finished with a touch of cranberry. This bright, fruity and refreshing brew is reminiscent of an autumn day in New England.

1. Pouring

I felt the closest proper glass I had for this witbier style was a Widmer Hefeweizen glass, which is a long almost champagne flute-like shape. The beer poured cloudy, typical for the style, and there was a bit of sediment in the bottom, which I assumed to be yeast but a dark magenta clump was stuck down there as well, most likely actual cranberry.

2. Appearance

The poured beer has a fairly dense white head, smooth but not creamy. The color is mild golden, darker than most lagers but not quite as much so as the Samuel Adams flagship, Boston Lager. A fair amount of cloudiness was present, typical for most wheat beer styles.

3. Aroma

The gentle, not overpowering, smell of cranberry and subtle spicing dominates over any hops or malt smell.

4. First Sip

The flavor is pretty common for wheat beer: a mild sweetness and full, almost bready taste. This beer does not have a tart or sour quality that you may expect from cranberry. Regarding the cranberry, this beer has a nice level of fruitiness. Conservative levels of fruit in beer usually appeal to me more than beer-flavored fruit juice. There are many fruit wheat beers out there, and usually I don’t go for a second bottle of any of them, but this one has just the right level. The spicing is also moderate and well-done: not quite as complex as say, a tripel, but enough to notice.

5. Mouthfeel

This beer is not super carbonated. It has a pretty full mouthful, but the flavors do not linger a long time.

6. Finish

The initial feel is the fullness of wheat, which quickly dissipates into a rolling cranberry sweetness with a bit of spice. Overall, no individual aspects of the beer jump out, but that is because it is very well-balanced and well-brewed, which is typical for Samuel Adams in my opinion; solid beers but nothing outrageous.

from my series of Samuel Adams Longshot 2008 Tasting notes:
Part I: Cranberry Wit
Part II: Traditional Bock