It’s New Year’s Eve and I’ve been looking for an excuse to crack open this beer I bought several months back. It’s the 2010 version of Infinium. If’ you’re not familiar with this beer, it’s a collaboration between Samuel Adams and Weihenstephen. Their goal was to create a really big, champaigne-like beer and still adhere to the Reinheitsgebot (the German purity law that says beer can only be made of water, malt, hops, and yeast).
Location: Enjoyed in a champagne flute at home in Bloomington, IL.
Numbers: 10.5% ABV, 10 IBUs, 20.5° Plato OG, 8 SRM, 278 Calories
Ingredients: Malts: Custom blend of two-row malted barley, malted spring white wheat, and malted oats. Hops: Hallertau Mittlefrueh, Spalt Spalter, Tettnang Tettnanger and Hersbrucker Noble Hops. Yeast: Samuel Adams ale yeast, Belgian yeast.
Appearance & Aroma: It was fairly clear and straw gold in color, with tons of carbonation and a fluffy white head. There was a very slight, light bready aroma, but it was a bit hard to pick up.
Taste & Feel: The body was very full and the mouthfeel was viscous and smooth, with a bit of a carbonation tingle from all of the carbonation. There was a sweet, bready, crackery, and lightly caramel maltiness up front, followed by a much bigger thick sweetness of the same flavors. It finishes with slight hint of bitterness, but there was a lot of risidual sweetness. The sweetness lingers for a several seconds in the aftertaste, and a warming sensation starts to come on in the aftertaste after several sips.
Food Pairing: This is definitely a big beer with lots of sweetness, so it needs something solid to be enjoyed with it. It went nicely with the bread, crackers and bleu cheese spread my wife made. It seemed to a little too sweet to go with other flavorful foods, so I’d lean to things that are a little more bland to cut down the sweetness, like a hot pretzel, warm bread, or cheese and crackers.
Overall Impression: I was initially hesitant to pay almost $20 a bottle for this last winter/spring, but I thought I’d get it and save it for a special occasion. There was a lot of hype around it when it first came out (complete with a special badge on Untappd), so my expectations were high. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to those expectations. It was pretty sweet, and the sweetness became a bit much after more than a glass, starting to attack the corners of my mouth. Other than the sweetness, there wasn’t much flavor to it. While I’m glad I can say I tried it, next time, I’ll drop $20 on a better beer (or multiple beers) instead of this one.
My Rating: 
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