This website uses cookies. By using this website and its offers and continuing navigating, you accept these cookies. You can change them in your browser settings.
We make Utopias to challenge the perception of what beer can be. This boundary bending, barrel-aged beer blurs the line between beer and fine spirit. At 30%, it’s the badass of our brewery. Its reputation puts it on every beer drinker’s bucket-list.
Introducing an exciting finishing cask for this release, Pineau des Charentes adds hints of honey and vanilla that envelop the palate. Along with our traditional Bourbon, Ruby Port, and Carcavelos casks which bring notes of peach, wine grapes, a rich woodiness, and vanilla, we also finished with Scotch and Peated Whiskey Casks. These casks impart an extremely subtle peaty smokiness, which rounds out the complexity of the overall blend.
Balaton Cherries are Michigan-grown cherries admired for their slightly sweet, tart taste. Aging our finished blend on this unique fruit gives the 2021 Utopias enhanced black cherry and dark fruit flavor, with hints of maple and vanilla. For the first time we also aged a portion of this blend in Sauternes French Oak Wine casks, which brings subtle notes of honeyed apricot and caramel to the rich layers of flavor. 28% ABV.
Our experiments with Cognac and Madeira finishing introduce distinct vanilla notes, and subtle, nutty, elegant, dark fruit aromas to 2019. At the end we added a touch of Kosmic Mother Funk, a wild ale fermented and aged for two years in Hungarian Oak foeders. Find it and you’ll taste flavors like plum, raisins, prunes, and toasted oak. 28% ABV.
In addition to Buffalo Trace and a variety of casks, we aged the 2017 recipe in Scandinavian Aquavit barrels, a vodka or gin like spirit with distinct flavors from spices and herbs. For the first time we finished with Moscat barrels, a wine known for its slightly smoky character. We blended with beer from 24-year-old Triple Bock and 17-year-old Millenium. 2017 Utopias has flavors like dark fruit, it's a little sweet, slightly smoky, and malty smooth. 28% ABV.
Some of the beer we aged 2015 with is old enough to drink itself. We used barrels once home to Cognac, Armagnac, Ruby Port, sweet Madeira, and of course Buffalo Trace Bourbon. We finished in extremely rare White Carcavelos wine barrels, which comes from a small region in Portugal. The scarcity of the barrels makes the 2015 Utopias an extremely limited collectible. If you open it, you’ll get wood, toffee, cocoa, and maple aromas, with flavors like molasses, earthy-wood, dates, and light-smoke nuts and toffee. 28% ABV.
For the first time we blended Utopias with Sam Adams Kosmic Mother Funk (KMF), a Belgian style ale barrel-aged between 9-months (and two-years) in Hungarian Oak tuns. KMF brought a whole new spectrum of complexity to other tobacco and dark fruit notes in earlier Utopias batches. You will taste bright fruit like cherries and plums, with just a little earth. A hint of sourness from the KMF tones down the sweetness. We made less than 15,000 bottles in 2013, so it’s pretty rare drinking experience. 28% ABV.
We broke our every two-year release cycle to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Utopias, and one of our greatest brewing accomplishments at Samuel Adams. We also broke our tradition of a gold bottle, with a special black vessle. While we actually began releasing barrel-aged beers with Triple Bock in 1994, it wasn’t until the 1st Utopias in 2002 that we introduced barrels that previously held spirits to mellow the high-alcohol beer on the palette.
We introduced Buffalo Trace Bourbon barrels into the process, and they’ve been a key piece of Utopias ever since. We hand-select each and every single-use barrel.
Every ingredient chosen for Utopias is the highest quality available, designed to deliver you a drinking experience like no other.
We've always aged Utopias in charred whiskey barrels—some of which are up to 3 decades old—but this year we've added new barrels for an even more distinct flavor. The 2025 Utopias introduces Irish Whiskey, Amarone, and White Port barrels to our aging process, alongside our traditional Ruby Port, Carcavelos, Cognac, and most recently, Scotch casks. We began barrel-aging beer in 1993 with the Triple Bock. Today, our techniques have led to the lunatic fringe of brewing, one of the oldest, strongest, most extreme beers in the world.
Some of the beer in this extreme reserve spends up to 30 years in bourbon barrels, which makes for a pretty tough customer. It’s inefficient, but the long road to your glass means Utopias has earned a complex character for a drinking experience above the ordinary.
Utopias is a true community effort. Our head brewers want it to pass through every Sam Adams brewery. We brew, age, and blend in various locations across the country, before a time-intensive hand-bottling process where we personally make sure each bottle of Utopias is given special attention.
Yeast: exhilarating right? We agree, and it gets pretty radical when it comes to Utopias. We use multiple yeast strains to make this beer, which is rare in brewing. We include one typically reserved for champagne, as well as another that’s such a ruffian we call it “ninja yeast,” created for its ability to survive and keep fermenting in extremely high alcohol environments like Utopias.
It takes a lot to make a beer that’s...well, a lot. Utopias is our craft maverick, brewed for the adventurous drinkers who need a premium craft beer experience. We spare no time, expense, or effort to create the most renowned and sought-after extreme beer you can get.
Each Utopias we explore uncharted territory with new blending techniques. And each new Utopias blend is made from an array of earlier years, some of the extreme beers already aged up-to 30 years. We finish the blend in still another variety casks that deepen the final flavor.
This beer is just as special to all of us at Sam Adams as to you. For our brewers, it’s a passion project. For Sam Adams employees, it’s tradition. Since Utopias was first released, each ceramic bottle gets a number on the bottom that corresponds with the order in which they were hired. Founder and Brewer Jim Koch gets bottle number 1, of course.
Utopias drinks like no other beer on the planet. Serve at room temperature and an ounce or two of this ruby-black liquid into Utopias glass or brandy snifter. Sip, savor, appreciate.
Samuel Adams Utopias® 2025 is a blend of multiple batches of our extreme beers aged for many years. We've always aged Utopias in charred whiskey barrels - some of which are up to 3 decades old - but this year we've added new barrels for an even more distinct flavor. The 2025 Utopias introduces Irish Whiskey, Amarone, and White Port barrels to our aging process, alongside our traditional Ruby Port, Carcavelos, Cognac, and, most recently, Scotch casks. This unique blend continues to evolve the flavor of Utopias, defying the status quo. From our earliest extreme brews, we set cracking that 30% ABV barrier as a lofty goal, and this year, we did it! Perhaps the strongest beer on Earth.
Introducing 2025 - Irish Whiskey, Amarone, and White Port Barrel, along with our traditional use of Ruby Port, Carcavelos, Cognac, and, most recently, Scotch casks. Irish Whiskey barrels are used to complement our increased use of Scotch casks, giving sharper caramel, woody, and slightly smoky notes. Robust, bold, and typically featuring a higher ABV, Amarone wine is an excellent complement to our increased alcohol content, evoking high tannins and slightly bitter grape flavor. Rounding out the new barrel inclusions is White Port—where toffee, caramel, and slight citrus notes will boost the traditional flavor notes of Utopias.
Utopias is a big beer. It's definitely too big to consume a lot at once. We recommend you enjoy from a 4 oz Utopias glass.
We like Utopias with dishes like clam chowder, a really nice steak, and desserts like pineapple upside-down cake. It follows celebration meals especially well.
We say forever, and we mean it. Once you uncap your Utopias, the experience has only just begun. Enjoy a pour today, then re-cap and store it for tomorrow… or ten years from now. Like a fine spirit, Utopias continues to evolve in the bottle. Its rich, complex notes deepening over time as it breathes and matures. Each sip down the road reveals new layers of flavor: oak, toffee, dark fruit, and warmth that only comes with patience. So savor it slowly. This isn’t a beer you rush. It’s one you revisit, again and again, as it gets even better with age.
Because of the high alcohol content, Utopias requires unique distribution. Samuel Adams Utopias can be found at select specialty beer, wine and liquor stores. We suggest you call up your favorite to see if they have a bottle. It sells for a suggested retail price of $240 per bottle. Price varies by market and, where the law allows it to be sold, availability is limited. Enjoy the hunt. That’s what makes life so interesting.
Utopias is rare, but not exclusive. However, it cannot be shipped or sold in 15 states including: AL, AR, GA, ID, MO, MS, MT, NH, NC, OK, OR, SC, UT, VT, and WV. Sorry, we love you all the same.