Sam Adams Deconstructed Latitued 48

This July fourth, as many of you did, I consumed a fair amount of beer on a deck while cooking/eating grilled meat. One of the things my friends and I drank was the Latitude 48 Deconstructed mixed 12 pack. Sam Adams makes an average IPA that involves 5 hop varieties and is named after the latitude containing the "hop belt" when most hops are commercially grown. The deconstruction is a great idea for both beer geeks and craft beer neophytes. In the 12 pack, you'll find 2 regular Latitude 48 bottles, plus 2 bottles each of a beer made with just a single hop from the 5 that make up the full hop list in the regular version. Supposedly, and I can't find confirmation online anywhere, each of the single hopped beers have the same IBUs as the regular, so the difference is exclusively which hop is used. Here are my photos and notes.

Regular Latitude 48, nothing amazing but an okay IPA. Somewhat bitter, slight earthy and fruity notes, nothing that sets it apart from a sea of average IPAs. We drank this first as to get the whole thing in our minds before breaking it down. We tried to go from mildest/cleanest to biggest/burliest in our tasting progression.

Hallertau Mittelfrueh, mild, earthy, clean and crisp. Not a hop that can support a beer like this, but not bad.

East Kent Goldings, the classic English hop. medium bitterness, smooth, slightly fruity, very familiar.

Ahtanum, piney, medium bitterness, not terribly fruity or earthy, great addition to a more complex beer.

Zeus, bigger taste, fairly earth, much more bitter than the previous three.


Simcoe, sharper/more bitterness, more fruit and citrus with piney notes, we thought this one was the most prevalent/noticeable in the complete/regular version.

Overall a great experiment and something I'd like to see more of in the future. Maybe not this exact set up, but a similar thing, maybe with the same base beer and then more creative additions as has been popular at various homebrew clubs.

This is definitely not a 12 pack to buy and drink by yourself, this is meant to be a group experience and I sure enjoyed it. So get some friends, get a few bucks from each of them and sit around grousing about each variety and enhance your understanding of hops.