Samuel Adams The Vixen Chocolate Chili Bock | Chad'z Beer Reviews #614

[scoobtoober29]

Thank to chad and all other video beer reviewers for saving us from wasting time on ok beer. Some times I'll still give it a try but there's quite a few other options that I haven't had yet. Cheers

[RyanOFelt]

Id have to agree about the glass. Maybe Sam Adam's should become a glassware company. I love that glass far more than any of their beers. It's a great general choice if you don't have the specific glass that a given beer should be served in.

[NYRfan4ever]

This was a ok beer, but the flavors they say on the label aren't really there. Cheers Chad!

[ChadzBeerReviews]

@NYRfan4ever that seems to be the case with most Sam Adams beers these days

[jjrudy41]

lets not forget this beer may have won a gold metal at the gabf for "chocolate beer" so when you catagorize it as that. i can easily name 5 "chocolate" beers i like better and even one chocolate beer with some sort of spice or pepper in it.

[jjrudy41]

i think whats lost in my video is not that fact that i thought the beer was good aweful and offensive to drink. if you ever watch my videos that actualy deem "undrinkable" my reaction is generally much worse. the reason i was so hard on this beer was more to the fact what it didn't deliver. the name "chocolate" and "chili" are in the name of the beer, and those flavors were barely there at best. add in the beer drank more like a regular lager, and i just thought it was a total fail of a beer.

[ChadzBeerReviews]

@jjrudy41 yeah but your first reaction was "that's horrible" and then you kept talking about how you weren't going to finish the bottle and it was borderline undrinkable. Are you saying you were overselling your dislike of the beer? lol

[jjrudy41]

@ChadzBeerReviews my first rection was "thats disgusting" not "that horrible" an it wasn't that emotional or vivid either. it was more nonchalaint. and i clearly say its not as bad as some of the worst beers in the world but its just not any good either... again i realized i was probably harsh, but at same time i still stand by my thoughts of it being a fail of a beer and not good.

[craigdrinkdrank]

I didn't hate or love the Vixen—it's just there. You're right though, it's a mislabeled beer—I think what they were going for is a savory/sweet Mexican hot chocolate vibe, but it falls short. No chili, not much chocolate, maybe the faintest touch of cinnamon, but that's it.

[StumpyJoeJr]

This is a beer that would be fun for me to blind taste test to see what I get from it. Since they say what's in on the bottle I was really trying to find all the flavors (which are not very intense). I also think that maybe this beer hasn't aged well so maybe I'll pick up another bottle and compare it to my review of it. But like you said, it's not as terrible as Jay made it out to be.

[ChadzBeerReviews]

@StumpyJoeJr well if it's a one-time-only brewing that means all bottles are the same age. I wouldn't waste your money, I don't think you're going to get anything else out this. Nothing that takes it from "meh" to "wow"

[ruderevival]

I dont know if youve ever reviewed the Samuel Adams Chocolate Bock, but I've had that and loved it. If youve ever tasted that how does the Vixen Chocolate Chili compare? It sounds like they taste similar.

[ChadzBeerReviews]

@ruderevival yeah I had that on tap, it was quite good. These are night and day different.

[ruderevival]

@ChadzBeerReviews ok thanks, i might get myself a bottle of this vixen to try it out.

[jjrudy41]

@ruderevival their very similiar

[realaleguide]

Its a shame Sam Adams beers are churning this kind of stuff out, when they revolutionized beer in America with their Boston Lager. Thumbed this video up to counter balance the fruit loop who thumbed it down.

[PassionBeer]

Thanks for actually being realistic in this review. I didn't think this was the greatest beer in the world, either. Mislabeled? Yeah, I'd agree there especially on the chili aspect. God awful and disgusting? Absolutely not. It seems with beer geeks if Sam Adams is on the label, it gets shit on blindly.

[ChadzBeerReviews]

@PassionBeer I'd say with Sam Adams it's a love them or hate them mentality. I know a lot of beer nerds that worship the ground Jim Koch walks on and that he can do no wrong because he "paved the way" so to speak. I find most of their stuff is in that middle "meh" category.

[paradisewaster]

Chocolate Chili beer i think my girlfriend would would like this one.Thanks for the Great review Chad!

[Wingfan13]

What kind of loser would setup a bot to downvote videos or take their time to setup multiple accounts ? Anyway, the one I had there was a very faint chili taste although that nay be what you were describing as peppery.

[ChadzBeerReviews]

@Wingfan13 You'd be surprised at the lowblow troll attacks I've received over the years. I know who this person is and he's certifiable, so I try to ignore him. You notice he's too much of a pussy to actually comment on the videos.

by "chili" they mean chili pepper (not a hot dish with beans and meat, etc), so they're interchangeable terms.

[ChadzBeerReviews]

@TheyLiveWeObey no, it means there's a troll who set up either bot to rate all my videos down or he has 10 sock puppet accounts that are rating my videos down. When a video receives 10 thumbs down in the first 20 minutes of it going live you know something's up. Until this troll backs off I'm going to disable ratings.

[drolretfa]

Dunkle doppel bock... I reviewed this a few months ago when it was first released and it had a really good chocolate flavor... I bought another bottle recently and got very very faint hints of chocolate. So perhaps you just have an old bottle or they cut back on the cocoa nibs some. Great review as always. Cheers!!!

[ChadzBeerReviews]

@drolretfa If they've only brewed it once that means all bottles are the same age. Cocoa nibs are not "chocolate" per se the way Southern Tier Choklat or Young's Double Chocolate Stout are literally brewed with chocolate. I think whatever chocolate taste you got was a placebo effect. That's why you didn't get it on the second try.

I would consider this just a bock. Doesn't have any of the characteristics you'd get in a doppelbock.

[patrickboegel]

@ChadzBeerReviews The first four beers in this series were brewed more than once, they are likely each to rotate in and out for new beers or if they find the response to be strong for any in particular they will likely keep it or bring it back. Batch #1 would definitely place this beer on the older end of the spectrum for this release and if they used nibs on this beer as the label and all other information suggests cocoa nibs age out fast, same as vanilla bean. The best way to use nibs/beans

[patrickboegel]

@patrickboegel is to use them at the very end of the wort boil or essentially right before cooling down the wort to retain the flavors and aromas, the other other way it to add them to a conditioning tank after most if not all of fermentation is complete, essentially like dry hopping. First thing to go with be those characteristics as the beer ages. I had a bottle of batch #2 in early December, both a cocoa character and light spice. Still, it was just an okay beer. Not great, not terrible.

[ChadzBeerReviews]

@patrickboegel "it was just an okay beer. Not great, not terrible" - seems to be the way to describe EVERY Sam Adams beer these days. They're shooting for mere adequacy now, apparently.

[patrickboegel]

@ChadzBeerReviews its a little bit a matter of spectrum of choice, their aim is to for the most part make Sam Adams beer for a much more general market in the craft segment. If you run their basic year round beers vs most craft breweries their goal is certainly not extreme beers, hop bombs or "imperializing" every style possible. Double bock is still a very good beer, their Imperial Stout is very good, their barrel series is excellent. They've always done lagers better than ales mostly.

[ChadzBeerReviews]

@patrickboegel I wouldn't know because I have no interest in their specialty beers because more often than not they're "meh" like this one was. Even the "savor Flowers" they did with DFH was a letdown. For the most part I'm not reviewing sam adams products anymore unless there's a lot of viewer demand for it.

[patrickboegel]

@ChadzBeerReviews what is the base of comparison though for Flowers, have you had a lot of Gruits? In comparison to most widely available beer styles, yes, it is not the most jaw dropping experience. I'll try to pick up some Barrel Room beers (not bourbon, just barrel aged) soon and I'll be your viewer demand ;)