In honor of Saint Patrick's day we start the Spring beer tourney with a showdown between two Irish Spring beers. That might be worst beer idea I can think of, an "Irish Spring" beer. The #4 seed in the Mid-East region, Harpoon Celtic Ale, versus the #5 seed Sam Adam's Irish Red. Harpoon Celtic Ale is an Irish red Ale from Boston, they have a brewery in Vermont as well. For each of these match-ups I will be using a different palate cleanser after trying each beer. This time the palate cleanser is a baked ham.
Both of these pour out a nice redish amber, with the Sam being noticeably darker. Harpoon has a nice mild hop and caramelized malts. Sam has more hop, but a scant nose in general. The Harpoon has very little hop up front, but it appears after some nice caramel tones and plays on the finish. Sam Adam's comes out much the same, but with slightly more malts, and more hop bitterness on the finish. Have some ham. The Sam's clearer got more body and a bit more flavor. On the other hand, the harpoon is very smooth and balanced. Let's have some more ham, this is a close one. Next I'm going from one to the other without any ham in between. I like both these beers, but the flavors in the Sam Adam's overwhelms the Harpoon head to head. It was close for a while, but Sam Adam's Irish Red pulls out the victory in a slight upset.
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