Northern Monk Neopolitan Porter + Sam Adams Boston Lager

A festive pairing worth documenting: Northern Monk’s Neopolitan Porter and Sam Adams Boston Lager sitting side by side represent two very different but equally valid expressions of craft brewing. Northern Monk are a Leeds-based brewery who’ve become one of the most celebrated craft beer producers in the UK, and the Neopolitan Porter — inspired by Neopolitan ice cream — is one of their most inventive and widely loved beers. Sam Adams, meanwhile, is the American craft beer pioneer that helped start the whole movement.

Northern Monk Neopolitan Porter

The Neopolitan Porter is a dessert beer in the best possible sense — chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry flavours woven through a dark porter base. It’s rich and indulgent but never cloying, and the combination of flavours is genuinely impressive. At its best it genuinely evokes the ice cream it’s named after: sweet but with the porter’s roast character keeping it grounded.

Sam Adams Boston Lager

Sam Adams Boston Lager is the beer that helped convince Americans craft beer was worth caring about, and it’s held up remarkably well. A Vienna lager-inspired amber beer with a rich malt character, noble hop flavour, and a clean, balanced finish — it’s the kind of beer that tastes more complex than it is and rewards drinking slowly. Having these two together in a single Boxing Day session is a genuinely satisfying way to explore the breadth of craft brewing.