Cherry Wheat By Sam Adams

It seemed like just a few years ago, the only options for beer were a couple of light lagers and Guinness. But at some point, craft beer options started to appear on tap handles. That’s when many of us found our gateway craft beer; for me that is Sam Adams Cherry Wheat.

A gateway craft beer is a beer that helped show you that beer could be more than a Budweiser or Miller Lite. It’s a beer that brought new flavors to a landscape that once felt very bland.

Since Cherry Wheat is my gateway beer, it was only a matter of time before I had to write a Craft Beer Spotlight about it.

Review Of Sam Adams Cherry Wheat

The craft beer industry is full of small, local breweries. And for most of us, those are the breweries that we tend to think of when we say “craft beer”.

But the giants of the industry paved the way for what American beer has become and few have done as much as Sam Adams.

They’ve been brewing craft beer for over 30 years which seems like an eternity in the craft beer community. And it’s hard to deny that great beer is one of the many reasons they succeeded.

And as I stated earlier, Sam Adams Cherry Wheat was my gateway craft beer. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of you would also name a Sam Adams beer as your gateway craft beer.

Cherry Wheat is 5.3% ABV and 23 IBUs.  It can be found in 6 packs for around $10.

Here is how Sam Adams describes Cherry Wheat:

Crisp and fruity with a hint of honey, this ale brewed with Michigan cherries is light on the palate, yet full of surprising depth and flavor.

Initial Thoughts

I’ve had this been more times than I can count. So I already knew what to expect long before I picked up this classic.

However, I do appreciate how Sam Adams has refreshed their branding which kind of makes it feel like a new beer.

Cherry Wheat pours a reddish-orange color and has a nice chill haze to it. More or less, it looks like most other wheat beers but with a red tint.

The head is a bright white that is fizzy and disappears just as you go in for the first sip.

The aroma is sweet cherry and in a blind tasting I don’t think you’d know it was beer.

Tasting Notes

Every time I drink this beer, it takes me back to when I first had it which I recall was at a place called the Beer Sellar in Newport, Kentucky.

It was long before taprooms and breweries were a part of my life. In fact, I didn’t really like beer very much at this time. But it helped me see that not all beer tasted like a light lager.

The flavor is sweet, candy-like cherry. It’s almost medicinal like a cough drop. This beer has a moderate body and like most wheat beers, I find them to be filling.

After the cherry flavor fades, it finishes clean. This is an easy drinking, smooth beer. And as you’d expect from a wheat beer, there’s no bitterness.

It’s big flavor and low ABV make it a great option when you intend to have more than one or two.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve followed my site for any amount of time then you’ve probably noticed that I’m a big fan of cherry.

So any time there is cherry in a beer, you can probably assume I’ll like it. And I don’t discriminate when it comes to cherry – real or artificial, I like it all.

But not everyone will like Sam Adams Cherry Wheat. First off, it’s definitely a wheat beer and some aren’t big fans of the style. Second, the cherry flavor leans more closely to an artificial flavor than real.

While this one might not be for everyone, I still have to highly recommend it because it can do no wrong in my eyes.

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Conculsion

It’s always fun to reminisce. And it’s that much better if the memories involve craft beer. For that reason alone, I’ll gladly pick up Cherry Wheat a few times a year just to go back to when I discovered craft beer.

Hopefully you have fond memories of when and where you found craft beer. And that there is a specific beer tied to that time in your life.

So what was your gateway craft beer? And what’s the story behind it? Shoot me a message and let me know.

Have You Tried Sam Adams Cherry Wheat?