When opening the beer I get a nice spicy/floral hop aroma with a tad bit of grainy malts. A slight lemon note comes through from the hops as well. The balance from the malts and hops is pretty damn good. I like my pilsners to be more on the hoppy side like Victory Prima Pils and Oskar Blues Mama's Little Yella Pils. This one is definitely up there and quite pleasing to my nose. Sam Adams Noble Pils has a nice straw yellow colour and very very clear. The one disappointment is the lack of head. I poured the beer fairly vigorously, yet the one finger head dissipated faster than I would have liked. However, it looks like there will be a decent lacing to this. After the beer is poured, I get more of a grainy pils flavour coming through in the nose, but that could be because I'm used to the hop aroma already.
When sipping on this yellow fuzzy beer, I get a great balance between the hops and the malts. The malts are perfectly balanced with the hops to to give a crisp bready flavour mixed with a spicy/floral note. I don't get the lemon I smelled in the nose, but there is a slight fruitiness that I can't really pick up. The lager characteristics in the beer are slightly perceivable, but it's pretty much the same thing that Boston Lager has. It's not bad, per se, but something that diverts attention from the great balance. The hops in this beer are just juicy and tasty. I am surprised this has been released in the winter, because this would be absolutely perfect after a hot day or grilling in the summer. One of my favourite things about pilsners is the balance, but this isn't as balance as a Spaten Pils; however, this is better than the Spaten Pils because of this absolutely stunning hop character. As I'm writing this review the hop character shines through the entire time; sometimes with hooppy pilsners the grainy malt starts to comes through, but this is so well hopped that the different hop flavours shine at different times. For example, I wrote earlier that I got mostly floral/spicy notes, but now I'm starting to get and sweet fruity flavour, almost reminiscent of a fruity ester. This mixed with the malt sweetness is simply fantastic. This could possibly be the best Sam Adams beer I've had (excluding the American Pale Ale I had at a beer fest).
The head quickly dissipated after a few sips, and I didn't get much lacing (could have been my glass pint glass); I'm not going to fault the beer because of this, but I'd like to see a bit more head because it doesn't look as appealing as before. Taking a nice drink and the beer's mouthfeel is almost perfect. Enough to be light and refreshing, but creamy enough to make me want to have more sips.
How is the drinkability? It's pretty damn good. I could easily drink this all night and drink many. With the ABV that is probably around five (I couldn't find the exact number, but I've seen 5.2% around), this is a fantastic session beer. I will be purchasing another six pack!
This is an A beer, for sure.
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