contagious

an interesting thing has been happening in auburn over the last few months. let me tell you about it, beginning with some back story.

-if you know me at all, you know that i enjoy beer. i enjoy beer a lot. not in the sense of getting/being drunk, but i like beer itself. i like how it tastes, i like trying new kinds, and i like being a snob about it. it's a hobby. 

-this summer, me, dan, lee, nathan pauley, and others began partaking in a monday and wednesday tradition of $2 pints of any beer on tap at mellow mushroom. this became a time to come together and talk about anything and everything while enjoying a nice mixture of barley and hops. with the beer being $2, it's fun to be able to try something new, the way it's supposed to be consumed (not in a bottle). 

-dan is a huge fan of sam adams and their various products. when in boston last year, he made a trip to the samuel adams brewery and took a tour. there, he learned the intricacies of what a glass of draft samuel adams boston lager is supposed to be. i also enjoy sam adams. this brings us to the matter at hand:

one day in late august, dan and i ordered sam adams at mellow mushroom. when we received our beers, we noticed something unusual. the beer was cloudy, light in color, and tasted somewhat citrus-y, almost like a blue moon. we thought, "hey, maybe they just made a mistake and poured the wrong beer". not thinking much of it, we drank our beer and that was that.

but, as we kept ordering sam adams over the next few weeks, we continued to get this same cloudy, somewhat unappetizing beer. we even watched them pour it, to make sure there wasn't some conspiracy against us. it was official. mellow mushroom was receiving bad kegs from sam adams. 

since this realization, we have, collectively, ordered sam adams at 2 or 3 other places in auburn, only to experience the same thing. cloudy, fruity, un-sam adams-y beer. dan and i just want to enjoy a nice, refreshing, complex samuel adams boston lager. with no cloudiness, no fruitiness, and no bad aftertaste. what is going on?? are the kegs going bad once they get here? are they old? is there something wrong in boston? are there other places getting bad kegs? ought we contact jim koch, the founder of sam adams brewery himself, about this terrible situation?