Final Thoughts on this Year’s Pumpkin Beer Tasting

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Cambridge Brewing Company, Cape An, Cisco Brewers Incorporated, Fall, Final Results, Harpoon Brewery, Pumpkin Beer

With another Halloween come and gone, it’s time to put the pumpkin beer tasting to rest.  This is usually a particularly thirsty holiday for me, and this year was no exception as that final blind tasting I had planned didn’t pan out.  My final three pumpkin beers were consumed the old-fashioned way, known and from a pint glass.  I have included them in the rankings below, so they still do get their chance to be a part of the experience.

And what an interesting experience this was.  There sure are a lot pumpkin beers released this time of year and it’s not hard to find a wide variety of options.  A few of these options are really good, some are pretty average, and a number of them are not so great.  There were times I got discouraged as the not so great ones seemed to be ganging up on me and  I now have a greater appreciation of why people sometimes roll their eyes at the whole idea of pumpkin beer.  While I am not at that point, I do think that next year I will be more selective in my purchases and go with known favorites or offerings that are of particular interest (more stouts please).  The benefit of all this was that now I know exactly what I like in a pumpkin beer: sweet malts, vegetal pumpkin, and a subdued spice presence.  So while it wasn’t always great, I really did enjoy doing this and might have even learned a thing or two.  But that’s enough rambling, below are the results!

TOP TIER – SEASONAL TRADITION

All the beers in this category were my favorites and ones that I am certain to actively look for and pick up next pumpkin beer season.

1.     Cape Ann Brewing Company – Imperial Pumpkin Stout: For the second, perhaps even third, year running this has been among my favorites.  It’s a bit sweeter than the rest, but it tastes so good.  I’m tempted to try and find some more to drink this winter and maybe even save for a vertical tasting.
2.     Harpoon Brewery – Pumpkin UFO: This beer was the star of the blind tasting rounds and ranked rather favorably (upper second tier) last year.  Sweet, vegetal tastes with just a subtle hint of spices is my preferred flavor profile and this beer delivered just that.  Also doesn’t hurt that it’s also readily available for a good price in my area.
3.     Cisco Brewers Inc. – Pumple Drumkin: Another repeat favorite.  While I don’t think it had the same excitement for me this time around as it did last year, it was still a very good beer and my only hop fix in this contest.
4.     Cambridge Brewing Company – Great Pumpkin: One of the few beers where I really appreciated the fall spices.  Very balanced and complex.  Quality brew.

SECOND TIER – THE GOOD

All these beers I enjoyed, but not quite as much as the previous tier.  These are the ones I would still order on draft, take to a party/have on hand for guests, or recommend to a pumpkin beer newbie.

4.     Dogfish Head Brewing – Punkin Head: A solid beer, this one pretty much defines what a pumpkin ale should be.  Not quite as exciting as the ones listed above, but a good choice none the less.
5.     Brooklyn Brewery – Post Road Pumpkin Ale: It needed a good amount of sweet malts to keep the finishing spices at bay, but this was overall an enjoyable beer.
6.     Slumbrew – Slumkin Pumpkin: It’s pretty much an exclusive to the Slumbrew establishments, but if you’re in the area of either their main brewery or Assembly Row taproom at the right time of year, this one is definitely worth a try.  A great example of a fall spice finish done right.

THIRD TIER – THE AVERAGE

These are the beers that didn’t make a strong impression.  They weren’t bad, but there was nothing about them that really captivated me either.  I wouldn’t pass one of these up if they were offered to me, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to get them either.

7. Long Trail Brewing Company – Pumpkin Ale: Nice mix of malts and subtle spices.  It doesn’t particularly stand out but does capture the style well.
8. Captain Lawrence Brewing Company – Pumpkin Ale: While it did have a bit more roasty bitterness and a hotter finish than your typical pumpkin ale, these things weren’t enough to elevate an otherwise lackluster brew.
9. Blue Point Brewing Company – Pumpkin Ale: It had all the elements of a beer I’d really like, only really muted.  It was definitely an approachable beer, but not one I could get excited about.  Perhaps too approachable, if that makes sense.
10.   Ithaca Beer Company – Pumpkin Ale: A touch on the spicier side but for the most part a nice balance between malts and the fall spice mix.  If you like spicier pumpkin ales, you might rate this higher.

THE HONORABLE MENTION TIER

These are beers that I didn’t know quite how to place.  While I have strong reservations about placing them in the second tier, they were too intriguing to fit into the third tier.  Think of these as beers that would be good were it not for some tragic flaw.  I’m curious enough to give them another shot, but realistic enough to think they may not earn a higher ranking after re-evaluation.

11.   Lakefront Brewery – Pumpkin Lager: This one had an odd but mostly enjoyable taste.  Earthy, malty tastes up front that turned to vegetal pumpkin combined with a sweet and slightly funky taste in the background.  Not sure about 1) how this would hold up when drinking more than one, and 2) how intentional that funk was.  I’d be willing to at least give it another try though.
12.   Magic Hat Brewing Company – Wilhelm Scream Pumpkin Ale: If going by taste alone, this beer would have ranked much higher.  Unfortunately, a fairly off-putting mouthfeel dropped it down several notches.  I’d be open to picking up one of these next year to see if they get that sorted out.
13.   Two Roads Brewing Company – Roadsmary’s Baby: This beer had a lot of potential that I felt it did not quite realize.  A bit too much roast and vanilla for my tastes, but I would give it another chance as it did enough for me to stay out of the lower rankings.

FOURTH TIER – THE SUBPAR

These are beers that really did not do it for me.  I would not seek them out or recommend them.

14.  Samuel Adams – Pumpkin Batch: As a Saison, this wasn’t too bad.  However, it did not taste even the slightest bit pumpkin-like so I cannot recommend it as a pumpkin beer.
15.   New Holland Brewery – Icabod Pumpkin Ale: The spices came on far too strong for my tastes and there wasn’t much else there to balance them out.  That makes this a miss for me.
16.   Smuttynose Brewing Company – Pumpkin Ale: This beer tasted soapy and astringently spicy.  It fared a bit better when left to sit for a bit, but I can’t say I liked this.

BOTTOM TIER – DRAIN POURS

This final tier is reserved for beers I really hated.  They will be actively shunned and I don’t think I’ll ever be persuaded to purchase one again.  

17.   Southern Tier Brewing Company – Pumking: Some people love this but to me it was cloyingly sweet, overly spicy, oily mess.  To each their own.  Fans of this beer rejoice, I’m leaving more on the shelves for you next year.
18.   Steadfast Brewing Company – Pumpkin Spiced Ale: This beer was WAY over spiced and pretty much undrinkable.  I appreciate they tried to put out a gluten-free pumpkin beer option, but it would have been better to go without this one.  Try their Oatmeal Stout instead.

I’m Gonna Pump(kin) You Up!

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Cambridge Brewing Company, Cisco Brewers Incorporated, Massachusetts, Pumpkin Beer, Pumpkins

With Halloween rapidly approaching it’s time to make a final push through my fridge and clear out the remaining pumpkin beers.  I am going to have one last blind tasting coming up, but for now we’re looking at another couple of beers I picked out to just enjoy on their own.

Up first was The Great Pumpkin by Cambridge Brewing Company.  It poured an orangish/dark amber body with a thin off white head.  The smell was a mix of sweet malts and pumpkin.  Pretty much par for the course so far.  The taste was a bit more intriguing.  It started out with smooth vegetal pumpkin followed by a bit of fall spices.  These spices then faded away as the beer transitioned to a rather complex finish that combined sweet malts, hints of vanilla, and an ever so slightly boozy ending despite being only 5.4%.  Mouthfeel was medium plus with not much carbonation and complimented the rest of the beer quite well.  Although the spices and vanilla finish can build up a bit at warmer temperatures, they never get to the point of dominating the beer or risked throwing it off-balance.  I enjoyed this one and will continue to make it part of my yearly must haves.

Beer number two was Pumple Drumkin by Cisco Brewers Incorporated.  This was the other co-favorite from last year and I had been eagerly anticipating its appearance in this year’s tasting.  Checking in at 6.0%, it poured a darker amber/brown body with only a thin, fizzy quick to dissipate head.  The smell was all sweet malts and didn’t really give away any hints about this being a pumpkin brew.  As for the taste, it was by far the hoppiest of the pumpkin beers I have had to date.  Upfront there was a mild earthy hop bitterness followed up by sweet malts and subtle pumpkin tastes in the middle.  It finished with a very light cinnamon/nutmeg/all spice combo that blended into the pumpkin flavors and was offset by just a bit more hops.  The beer was medium bodied and moderately carbonated, more in line with a typical IPA than a lot of the other pumpkin beers I’ve sampled.  I really liked this beer as sort of Pumpkin Ale/IPA hybrid.  It was a bit spicier on the finish than I remember it being, but this is still a beer I will continue to make a part of my fall season.

So that rounds out this latest round of pumpkin tastings.  Again, there will be one more set of reviews before I reveal my final rankings and provide some final thoughts on the pumpkin experiment.

A Few More Pumpkins

Tags

Assembly Row, Beer, Beer Review, Cape Ann Brewing Company, Massachusetts, Pumpkin Beer, Pumpkins, Slumbrew, Somerville Brewing Company

Hard to believe it is already mid-October!  Pumpkin beer season is probably now at its height, so it seem to be an appropriate time to report in on two more.  Unlike the other reviews so far, these beers were not tasted blindly.  One was ordered while out running some errands and the other was a long-standing favorite that I just couldn’t pulling out of the fridge.  So, without further ado, here are the latest two entries into my pumpkin patch.

The first beer to report on this time around is Slumkin Pumpkin, by Slumbrew Brewing Company.  We happened to be in Assembly Row running an errand the other and my wife suggested we stop by the American Fresh Taproom to grab a beverage before heading home.  I hadn’t been there in a while so I wasn’t about to pass this up.  They seemed to have a good number of beers pouring that particular night, but sitting prominently among the beers I hadn’t tried before was a pumpkin beer.  I felt committed at this point, so the pumpkin beer it was.  Happily, it was pretty good.  Checking in at 6.5%, it poured with a typical orangish copper body and a foamy white head.  The smell hinted at a promising vegetal sweet taste profile, something that has done well for me so far.  The taste did follow-up on this and was overall pretty smooth with vegetal pumpkin tastes upfront, a transition to sweet malts and finally a vanilla/pumpkin spice finish.  What made this beer so good for me was that the spice finish wasn’t overdone, though it did build up a bit as the beer went on.  The mouthfeel was pleasingly thick and creamy and brought to mind thoughts of pumpkin pie.  One of the better pumpkin beers I’ve had this season.

The second beer I have to report on was last year’s co-favorite, Cape Ann Brewing Company’s big 11.0% Imperial Pumpkin Stout.  This one is completely different from any of the others I’ve listed on here so far.  It poured dark and black, though I couldn’t coax any more than a thin fizzy head out of it.  The smell is vegetal and sweet, mixed with just a bit of alcohol as the beer warms.  The taste, though, is where the beer really starts to impress.  Upfront is strongly vegetal pumpkin.  The pumpkin remains throughout the beer, though it transitions to a more of sweet pumpkin syrup-like taste by the end.  The pumpkin combines with both sweet and lightly roasted malts and comes to a somewhat boozy finish.  There was not much in the way of spice in this beer and that suited me just fine.  Mouthfeel was thick and creamy and rather low carbed, excellent for the big tastes and style.  Once again, I found this to be a fantastic beer it remains at the top of my list.  It is a good beer period, not just for a pumpkin offering.  It is also now sold in 4 packs of 16 ounce cans which makes it an even nicer pick up for when a bomber is just a bit more than you are looking for.  Highest recommendations for this one.

Pumpkins, Round 4

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Blue Point Brewing Company, Fall, Harpoon Brewery, Pumpkin Beer, Pumpkins, Smuttynose Brewery

After being sidetracked by a particularly busy week at work, it was time again to unwind with a new wave of pumpkin beers.  The last batch ending on a somewhat promising note, so let’s see if that momentum called over into this set.

The first beer of the night was Pumpkin UFO by Harpoon Brewery and I am happy to say it started things off on a high note.  It poured a nice cloudy orange-copper body that right off the bat had me thinking about pumpkins.  The smell was sweet and slightly vegetal with a very slight hint of spice.  The taste, however, is where this beer really took off for me.  It had a sweet, at times caramelly, malt backbone accompanied by vegetal pumpkin and light cinnamon/nutmeg spices.  It had a smooth medium body with a slightly more than moderate amount of carbonation that suited the beer perfectly.  Any more carb and it would have been too much, but for me they got it just right.  No doubt my favorite pumpkin beer of the year so far.

The next beer was unfortunately a letdown.  It turned out to be Pumpkin Ale by Smuttynose Brewing Company and it lost me almost from the start.  The amber/deep copper body wasn’t a problem, but the soapy smell backed up by strong hints of spice was a warning of things to come.  The soapiness carried over into the taste and was followed up by sweet and toasty malts with an astringent allspice finish.  I later drank some from the bottle to make sure it wasn’t my glass throwing off the taste, but alas, it was not.  The soap did taste eventually mellow out a bit and give way to more sweetness if the beer was left to sit for a little while, but that was too little too late.  This one was definitely a miss for me.  Moving on.

Closing out this round was another Pumpkin Ale, this one by Blue Point Brewing Company.  While it was a step up from the previous offering, it was overall pretty uninspiring.  It poured a dark amber/copper body and had a foamy head that stuck around for most of the drinking experience.  This beer did not have much of a smell and only a very mild taste.  Sweet malts and a hint of vegetal pumpkin upfront with a nutmeg and allspice finish that was thankfully also rather muted.  Mouthfeel was kind of thick with a moderate amount of carbonation that suited the beer well.  I don’t know that this would have been better with proportionally bolder tastes, but as offered I found the beer somewhat lacking.  Non-offensive was the word that kept coming to mind when thinking about it, which while not bad, isn’t great either.  It was a non-offensive pumpkin spice beer.  Meh.

With four rounds in the books let’s take a look at the updated standings:

Upper Tier Beers

1. Harpoon Brewery – Pumpkin UFO: First beer to break into the upper echelon, this had a great taste profile without the mouthfeel issues that the Magic Hat brew had last time.

Second Tier

1. Dogfish Head Brewing – Punkin Head
2. Brooklyn Brewery – Post Road Pumpkin Ale
3. Magic Hat Brewing Company – Wilhelm Scream Pumpkin Ale
4. New Holland Brewery – Icabod Pumpkin Ale

Third Tier

1. Captain Lawrence Brewing Company – Pumpkin Ale
2. Blue Point Brewing Company – Pumpkin Ale: This was no doubt thoroughly average.
3. Two Roads Brewing Company – Roadsmary’s Baby
4. Smuttynose Brewing Company – Pumpkin Ale: Drinking it after leaving it to sit just barely redeemed it from banishment to the lowest tier.  I’d give it another try at some point, but won’t go out of my way to do so.  Ranks above Pumpkin Batch because it at least did its job as a pumpkin beer.
5. Samuel Adams – Pumpkin Batch

Bottom Tier (Never Again)

1. Southern Tier Brewing Company – Pumking: Still shuddering when I see it on shelves or Untappd.
2. Steadfast Brewing Company – Pumpkin Spiced Ale

You don’t believe in the Great Pumpkin!?!? – Blind Tasting, Part 3

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Blind Tasting, Fall, Magic Hat Brewing Company, Pumpkin Beer, Pumpkins, Samuel Adams, Souther Tier Brewing Company

It was time to get back out there and try more pumpkin beers.  I have a mini-fridge full of them, so I wasn’t about to let one bad tasting spoil me on the whole patch.  Although this round produced some bizarre results, it was an improvement upon the previous one.  Here’s a look at what came out of the refrigerator for me this time.

Beer number one started things off on an odd note.  It had a pale yellow body, just slightly hinting at amber, and a fizzy white head.  The smell was bready yeast all the way, which also dominated the taste up front.  The beer then developed a strong floral taste before coming to a rather peppery finish.  This beer would best be described as crisp and peppery as nothing about it suggested that it was a pumpkin beer.  The mouthfeel was on the thinner side and rather strongly carbonated.  I was certainly confused; had my peppercorn saison been opened by mistake?  The answer was no.  At this point I should tell you that this beer was Pumpkin Batch by Samuel Adams, labeled as a 5.6% fall seasonal saison brewed with real pumpkin.  Huh?  Suffice to say, this was a miss for me.  It tasted nothing like a pumpkin beer, my whole reason for picking it up, and I found the peppery finish too strong and unchecked.  Don’t know what else to say about this one.

The next beer didn’t exactly do much to restore sanity to the evening, but it was at least delicious.  I was apparently overzealous when selecting beers for my Oktoberfest and pumpkin tastings and another one of Southern Tier’s fall seasonals, this one called Harvest, snuck its way into the mix.  It had a brown label that blended right in with the others, apparently a bit too well as I assured my wife that other than the aforementioned Peppercorn Saison, everything left in the fridge was a pumpkin beer and fair game for pouring.  While I won’t include it in my pumpkin rankings, Harvest did redeem the brewery following the Pumking debacle last tasting.  Briefly, the beer poured a cloudy, dark yellowish amber body with a bubbly head.  The smell and taste both brought forth a flavor profile I love so well: sweet caramel malts and piney, bitter hops. The beer gets ever so slightly boozy as it warms (ABV is 6.7%) and I could swear there was a subtle hint of fall spice on the tail end of the finish.  Or it could have been the power of suggestion.  Either way I was confused again.  Medium bodied with the just the right of carbonation to carry the style.  Overall this was a very good beer, but one that has to be disqualified from the contest.

And now the final beer of the evening, Wilhelm Scream Pumpkin Ale by Magic Hat Brewing Company.  It feels like it’s been forever since I last had a beer from Magic Hat (my mercilessly unforgetful drinking buddy Untapped says 2.25 years almost to the day) as the brewery did not really keep my attention once I became more fully immersed in the world of beer.  This offering, however, was quite solid.  Competitively solid even.  It was the darkest brew of the night, pouring a deep amber and copper body.  It smelled of sweet malts with a hint of fall spices and perhaps even (at last!) pumpkin.  The taste was malty and vegetal, with a mellow fall spicy finish that blended vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  There was also a mild bitterness that occasionally came through.  The mouthfeel was on the thicker side and the carbonation was rather high.  This is the one place where the beer faltered.  The carbonation was a bit too aggressive, causing the beer to start foaming up in my mouth mid to late sip.  It didn’t ruin the beer for me, but it did make a bit harder to enjoy a mellow yet flavorful 5.4% pumpkin ale that was just begging to be drunk with ease on a cool fall day.  That flaw aside, this beer restored my faith in the pumpkin tasting, which I’ll admit had taken a hit at this point.  I don’t know that I would have picked up this beer without making it my goal to try all the pumpkin beers I could find, and I can’t say for sure I would have given it a totally fair shot not drinking it blind.  So cheers to Magic Hat for putting out a fine pumpkin ale.

So we end things here on a positive note.  I am keeping high hopes that this is where the tasting turns around for the better and we can start placing some beers in the upper tier soon.  As things stand now, here are the latest rankings:

Upper Tier Beers (Best of the Best)

(None Yet)

Second Tier (Good but not the Best)

1. Dogfish Head Brewing – Punkin Head
2. Brooklyn Brewery – Post Road Pumpkin Ale
3. Magic Hat Brewing Company – Wilhelm Scream Pumpkin Ale: This would have been upper tier if not for the mouthfeel issue.
4. New Holland Brewery – Icabod Pumpkin Ale

Third Tier (The Average)

1. Captain Lawrence Brewing Company – Pumpkin Ale
2. Two Roads Brewing Company – Roadsmary’s Baby
3. Samuel Adams – Pumpkin Batch: I admittedly was not thrilled with this beer, but it did not deserve banishment to the bottom tier on the grounds that it was drinkable without requiring concentrated effort.

Bottom Tier (Never Again)

1. Southern Tier Brewing Company – Pumking
2. Steadfast Brewing Company – Pumpkin Spiced Ale

March of the Pumpkins – Part Two

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Captain Lawrence Brewing Company, Fall, Gluten Free, Pumpkin Beer, Pumpkins, Souther Tier Brewing Company, Steadfast Brewing Company, Two Roads Brewing Company

Hello and welcome to the second round of my Second Annual Blind Pumpkin tasting.  Not going to lie, this round was something of a disappointment, so take this as your warning about these beers.  Let’s do this thing and move along

Beer number one was Pumpkin Ale by Captain Lawrence Brewing Company.  It poured a golden orange/amber body with a thin, fizzy white head.  The smell was moderately sweet with a ton of spices.  It mellowed out a bit as the sample sat there, but the aroma sure came on strong at the start.  Given this, the taste was somewhat surprising.  It had toasty malts upfront with just a hint of the usual mix of pumpkin spices by the finish.  There was also a slight a bitterness and just a hint of booziness as the beer warmed up, which seemed odd considering it was only 5.5%.  I would put both mouthfeel and carbonation at moderate.  Overall this wasn’t a bad beer, but I didn’t find it particularly inspiring either.  I was kind of disappointed that it was a Captain Lawrence offering as I had recently spent a day enjoying the hell out of their IPA at the New York Renaissance Faire.

Next up was an old nemesis of mine, Pumking by Southern Tier Brewing Company.  I have not liked this beer the past few years but wanted to give it another try.  Never again, I say, never again.  It pours a light golden, just slightly orange color without much head to speak of.  It was by the smell that I recognized my foe.  Sweet, buttery, and a whole lot of spices.  The taste was more of the same.  Total spice bomb of nutmeg, cinnamon, and artificial pumpkin spice.  It also tasted a bit buttery to me with a cloying sweetness that gives this beer a messy taste.  The mouthfeel is thick and oily smooth with a very light amount of carbonation.  I wanted to drain pour this but my wife insisted that I finish it on the grounds that I knew what I was getting into when I bought it.  She’s not wrong, but this beer sure was.  Some people love this beer, and my opinion may even be in the minority here, so I’ll be leaving all the rest for them.

Last up was Roadsmary’s Baby by Two Roads Brewing Company.  This one surprised me after the reveal.  Last year I had rated this beer fairly well, but this year I didn’t much care for it.  It poured a deep amber body with a slightly foamy white head.  The taste was roasty malts upfront which transitioned into a moderately spicy, somewhat boozy finish.  A bit of vanilla rounds out the booziness as the beer warms, and finding out later that this was rum barrel aged makes a lot of sense.  Mouthfeel was creamy and lightly carbonated, well suited to the flavor profile, but unfortunately this beer just never really came together for me.

It wasn’t part of the blind tasting, but a dishonorable mention also goes to Steadfast Brewing Company for their Pumpkin Spiced Ale.  This is a gluten free beer my wife had picked up to enjoy with me but wow did this miss its mark.  Spices were way out of balance and it tasted like drinking a strong blend of fall potpourri and nothing about it even remotely suggested that it was a pumpkin ale.  She took a sip, I took a sip, and then I am sorry to say we poured it out.   This is certainly saying something as we have joined forces to power through some pretty rough gluten free beers.  Disappointing for sure.

So, the rankings after this tasting debacle are as follows:

Upper Tier Beers (Best of the Best)

(None Yet)

Second Tier (Good but not the Best)

1. Dogfish Head Brewing – Punkin Head
2. Brooklyn Brewery – Post Road Pumpkin Ale
3. New Holland Brewery – Icabod Pumpkin Ale

Third Tier (The Average)

1. Captain Lawrence Brewing Company – Pumpkin Ale
2. Two Roads Brewing Company – Roadsmary’s Baby

Bottom Tier (Never Again)

1. Southern Tier Brewing Company – Pumking
2. Steadfast Brewing Company – Pumpkin Spiced Ale

March of the Pumpkins – Part One

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Brooklyn Brewery, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, Fall, New Holland Brewery, Pumpkin Beer, Pumpkins

Fall is in the air:  baseball games are getting more intense; kids are going back to school; and pumpkin beers are starting to fill up the shelves.  While I understand there are some beer folks out there who are less than excited about this development, I myself enjoy getting into the seasonal spirit and like to sample from the patch of new beers available.  I’m not one for seasonal creep, but now that the calendar has flipped over into September I am getting started on my second annual blind tasting spree of pumpkin beers.

The concept is pretty straightforward.  I go to my local stores, stock up on a bunch of pumpkin beer singles, and later on my wonderful wife pours three of them into taster glasses for me to sample.   After I have recorded and discussed my thoughts, the beers are revealed.  It was a lot of fun last year, and I couldn’t wait to get started this year.  So without further ado, here are the results after the first batch.

The first pumpkin beer of the season was Punkin Head by Dogfish Head Brewery.  This was also my favorite of the set.  It poured a medium orangish body, topped off with a thin foamy white head.  The smell was mostly vegetal malts with a hint of pumpkin spices.  The taste was mellow and creamy upfront.  There’s also a slight pumpkin taste that about midway through turns to spices/pumpkin pie.  There’s also a sweet maltiness throughout that blends into the spices well and really makes this beer work for me.  ABV on this one is higher than most at 7.0%.  While I doubt that it will remain my favorite, this was a very solid beer and should end up well placed in the grand scheme of things.

Next up was a new beer to me, Icabod Pumpkin Ale by New Holland Brewery.  This was decidedly the loser of the three.  The pour was a dark orange body with a thick, creamy white head (get used to this sort of description).  Not too much going on in regard to the smell.  The taste starts out nondescriptly with mellow malts, but then there is a sudden spike in vanilla/fall spices halfway through that really throws me off.  It comes out of nowhere and is a bit too much for my tastes.  Mouthfeel is medium plus and the carbonation is a little light. Checks in at 5.5%.   I’m calling this beer a miss because the spices came on way too strong and there was not much else there to balance them out.

Rounding out the first set was Post Road Pumpkin Ale by Brooklyn Brewery.  This is one I have good memories of from previous years but this time around, while enjoyable, I was a bit surprised after the reveal that I did not rate this one higher.  Of the three beers poured today, this one had the lightest colored body (still orange) and had a nice foamy, white head.  There’s a moderate spice smell that made me a bit worried going in following the Icabod, but fortunately the taste turned out better on this one.  This has more of a malty sweetness up front that takes hold before the spices kick in towards the finish and give this beer a balance the previous one did not have.  This one had a thicker mouthfeel than the others and it suited the tastes well.  This was the most mellow of today’s beers at 5.0%.  Overall, I put it just behind the Punkin Head.  I don’t think this is a contest winning pumpkin ale, but I do think it was pretty decent.

So, after one round the standings are as follows:

1. Dogfish Head Brewing – Punkin Head
2. Brooklyn Brewery – Post Road Pumpkin Ale
3. New Holland Brewery – Icabod Pumpkin Ale

I suspect this list will shake up a lot as the fall goes on.  Despite being solid enough beers, I don’t see either of the top two sticking around that high for long.  Nothing against them, I just hope/expect to have at least one or two offerings really blow me away.  However, after considering the bottom beers from last year’s tasting, if number three is the worst pumpkin beer I try this season I will have done alright for myself this year.

Stayed tuned for Round 2!