Name: A Dark Night in Munich
Brewery: Samuel Adams (Longshot Series)
Style: Munich Dunkel
Price: $9.99 per 6-pack
ABV: 5.9
Final Grade: 38
Score: B

I was looking forward to this one.

At 5.9%, it was the most mellow of the bunch. No spices. No tricks to cover up the flaws. Just a straight, dark lager, and a deceptively difficult one to brew.

I’d say Corey Martin did all right with A Dark Night in Munich. The homebrewer who won the rights to have his beer sold as 33.3 percent of the Longshot Series winners six pack produced a toasty, malt-heavy lager.

The alcohol was a bit high for the style and there was a strong cherry flavor that seemed distracting. Otherwise, this was a welcome part of the collection.

Last weekend’s homebrew competition got me fired up about what some of the world’s greatest amateur zymurgists are up to. And, as luck would have it, Samuel Adams’ Longshot Series recently hit the shelves.

I’ll be spending the next three weeks reviewing the winners in this sampler pack. Until I took my first sip of the Five Crown, I had high expectations.

On the up-side, the beer is a beautiful thing to behold. Thick, mousy mocha head, impressive lacing and obsidian black. But the flavor hit me with a weird metallic flavor that had me double-checking to make sure my mouth wasn’t bleeding. (It wasn’t.) The acidity of the specialty malts got in the way. If they’d eased up just a bit, the improvement in the flavor would have more than made up for any lost color.

Name: Ancient Grains Ale
Brewery: Meinklang farm brewery
Style: Kolsch
Price: $3.75
ABV: 4.7
Final Grade: A-minus
Score: 42

The sales clerk told me that this was the most unusual beer he’d tasted. Well then. Sold.

This Austrian beer is made with barley, spelt and two of the oldest grains in the world — Emmer wheat and Einkorn wheat. But where those grains come from is almost as important. They are grown on the Meinklang biodynamic farm, where pesticides are shunned and an astrological approach to farming known as Demeter is embraced.

Name: Maximus
Brewery: Lagunitas Brewery (Petaluma, Calif.)
Style: Imperial IPA
Price: $9.99 per 6-pack
ABV: 8.2
IBU: 59
Final Grade: B
Score: 39

It’s been so long since I had an IPA.

This winter has been nothing but malt. Dunkel, doppelbock, porter, stout. Hops to the back, bread in the driver’s seat and roast riding shotgun. A streak of seasonable New England spring weather (50s, partly sunny, always threatening snow) had me longing for citrus. This is where Lagunitas delivers with Maximus.

Chad Rich has been working 16 hour days since opening the Prohibition Pig last month, and much as he wanted to, he just didn’t have a lot of time to chat.

Name: Founders Breakfast Stout
Brewery: Founders Brewing (Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Style: Oatmeal Stout
ABV: 8.3
IBU: 60
Final Grade: A
Score: 46

“Beer is for breakfast around here, drink or be gone.” — Douglas Coughlin (from “Cocktail”)

Amen brother. You were a self-destructive drunk, but man could you speak the truth. Especially when loaded on brandy.

To be clear, I did not drink Founders Breakfast Stout with my morning meal. But I pretended to by having “breakfast” for lunch. Waffles, strawberries, eggs with cheddar cheese. Delicious.

Beer with breakfast is not what Founders is encouraging here. Beer is breakfast, says this Michigan brewery. You’ve got a decadent meal of oatmeal, coffee, finished with a couple bites of dark chocolate. If they’d brewed this beer with lactose, you really would have a good portion of the food pyramid covered.

Name: Claymore Scotch Ale
Brewery: Great Divide Brewing Co.
Style: Wee Heavy/Scotch Ale
ABV: 7.7
Final Grade: A
Score: 46

Colorado has more than 100 breweries (118 as of 2010), and yet, the one I hear about the most is Great Divide.

This Denver brewery is well known for its Yeti, a Russian Imperial Stout. But after having tried the Claymore Scotch Ale, I’d have to figure that this malt-bomb would give any beer on the menu a run for its money.

I admit — when given a choice, I’ll unconsciously choose the beer with a dog on the label every time. And if it were to come down to Smuttynose’s Old Brown Dog and any other dog-related-beer, I’d almost always go with Smuttynose.

I first became aware of Schlafly beers (made by The Saint Louis Brewery) when I read a story about them storming the gates at Busch Stadium. Right on, I thought. Local craft beer penetrates the castle.

Name: Spine Tingler
Brewery: Mactarnahan’s Brewing (Portland, Ore.)
Style: Belgian Tripel
Price: $8.50 per 22 oz. bottle
ABV: 8.5
IBU: 23
Final Grade: A-
Score: 42

For so long, I’ve wanted to write a review with the dateline “Portland, Ore.,” a West Coast utopia that is the stuff of beer geek fantasies and television satires.

I’ve still never been there, but finding a Portland beer in my area was exciting all the same. Mactarnahan’s Spine Tingler did, indeed, send tingles up my spine.

Not only was it a Belgian tripel — a favorite style of mine — but it was made in one of America’s truly great beer cities. So, it was something of a letdown to realize that it wasn’t.