This Sam Adams Beer Is Illegal in 15 States (but Not Maine)

Sam Adams will be releasing the new edition of their Utopia brand beer on October 11, but with an ABW of 28%, it’s illegal in 15 states.

Don’t fret my fellow Mainers, Sam’s wildly potent brew will be available in Maine; however, it may be difficult to snag for two reasons: its limited nature, and the price.

According to an article in CNN, the brewery only releases around 13,000 bottles of Utopias and at a hefty price of $240 for a 25.4-ounce bottle. If this is piquing your interest, you better be on the lookout starting October 11 and be ready to splurge.

Being a Boston brewery, the beer will of course be available in Massachusetts, but will not be shipped or sold in New Hampshire. So, unfortunately, you will not be able to do the classic tax-free stop at the New Hampshire Liquor Store, which would be a good deal with a price tag like this one.

How do they do it? And is it even good?

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First off, it’s Sam Adams, so it’s gotta be wicked good. But I could just be a biased New Englander. The brewery’s website gives a breakdown of this “extreme barrel aged beer” and remarks that they used several different yeast strains during the fermentation process, including one strain that is traditionally used for champagne and one that is referred to as a “ninja yeast”. Sounds pretty cool to me…

The Utopia brand has a new limited batch released every two years, and this year’s is a blend of batches (which tells me they’ve clearly had yummy success in the past and I’m convinced this has to be good). Some of these batches have been aged up to 24 years in a variety of barrels.

The brewery describes this year’s taste as, “deep rich malty smoothness reminiscent of a vintage port, cognac, or fine sherry”.

The Utopia is so strong it is not available in the following states:

Alabama
Arkansas
Georgia
Idaho
Missouri
Mississippi
Montana
New Hampshire
North Carolina
Oklahoma
Oregon
South Carolina
Utah
Vermont
West Virginia

Don’t see your state on that list? Keep your eye out next month if you want to try one of Sam Adam’s most limited-edition boozy beers.

LOOK: Best Beers From Every State

To find the best beer in each state and Washington D.C., Stacker analyzed January 2020 data from BeerAdvocate, a website that gathers user scores for beer in real-time. BeerAdvocate makes its determinations by compiling consumer ratings for all 50 states and Washington D.C. and applying a weighted rank to each. The weighted rank pulls the beer toward the list's average based on the number of ratings it has and aims to allow lesser-known beers to increase in rank. Only beers with at least 10 rankings to be considered; we took it a step further to only include beers with at least 100 user rankings in our gallery. Keep reading to find out what the best beer is in each of the 50 states and Washington D.C.