13 Days of Halloween – Day Five: Elysian Brewing Company – Night Owl

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13 Days of Halloween, Beer, Beer Review, Elysian Brewing Company, Halloween, Pumpkin Beer

It wouldn’t be fall without the arrival of pumpkin everything!  While I’m not necessarily opposed to this occurrence, I have become somewhat wary of pumpkin beer over the years.  There does, however, always seem to be one that catches my eye.

Beer Name: Night Owl

Brewery: Elysian Brewing Company (Seattle, WA).  In the interest of full disclosure, this brewery was acquired by AB-Inbev in 2015.

Style: Pumpkin Ale

ABV: 6.7%

Description: The rather descriptive label on the bottle tells us that this unfiltered ale was brewed with pumpkin and roasted pumpkin seeds and conditioned with nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, ginger, and allspice to give it that Fall feeling.

Appearance: It poured a cloudy copper orange body with some visible sediment in glass.

Smell: Moderate levels of sweet malt and pumpkin spice.

Taste: Sweet candy malts and earthy pumpkin notes upfront, followed by a moderate “pumpkin spice” blend from the aforementioned conditioning ingredients.  The finish saw a return of the sweetness with perhaps just a bit of heat around the edges.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with a moderate amount of carbonation.

Hype: None on my end.  Despite my skepticism about pumpkin beers these past few years, we picked this one up because it fulfilled my theme requirements.

Overall: I liked this and my wife loved it.  Speaking for myself, I appreciated that it had actual pumpkin notes to it and achieved a nice balance between the malty sweetness and added spices.

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Ipswich Ale Brewery’s Harvest Festival

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Baseball, Beer, Beer Review, Craft Beer, Fall, Farm, Harvest Festival, Ipswich Ale Brewery, Oktoberfest, Pumpkin Beer, Russell Orchards, Spencer Pierce Little Farm, Tap Mobile

Although the calendar may not have made it official yet, my family has decided to turn the page on Summer and embrace the arrival of Fall.  With temperatures in the 60s last weekend it seemed the weather was willing to play along as well. We welcomed the new season in style this past weekend with a trip up north to Ipswich, MA where we started out our day with some apple picking and farm animals at Russell Orchards.  It was our second year in a row taking our son there and he

After getting our fill of apple treats, we journeyed on to the Spencer Pierce Little Farm in Newbury to check out Ipswich Ale Brewery’s Harvest Festival.  It was an all ages, family-friendly event that offered something for everyone.  The venue was beautiful and my toddler had a blast seeing his second round of farm animals (including his favorite – a horse!), getting a caricature drawn, and playing lawn games with some of the other children.  Also featured that day was a steady supply of live music, 1860s-rules baseball games, and a variety of food trucks. And, of course, there was also plenty of Ipswich beer, which was being poured out of the brewery’s fantastic tap mobiles – a small fleet of vintage trucks equipped with tap handles for dispensing beer on the go.  There was a wide variety of styles pouring that day, including my beloved Route 101 and 1620 IPAs, but since I was in a festive fall mood I went with a pair of seasonal options (procured at a cost $6 per 16 oz. pour).  

Beer number one was Chucktoberfest, a 6.1% Marzen.  It had a nice orange/copper body with some off-white lacings around the top of the cup.  Its sweet, toasted malt aroma carried over into the taste where it faded into a blend of clean, bready malts and mild earthy hop presence that brought to mind everything you’d expect from a German-style lager.  It made for some easy drinking and was a good start to the fall season.

My second, and final, beer of the day was the 5.4% Pumpkin Porter.  I broke my own rule regarding pumpkin beer with this one (never before October!), but the festive spirit moved me once again.  Looking back at my old posts, apparently this is second time I have done so for this beer!  Pumpkin beers in general are pretty hit or miss with me, but I liked this one more than most after trying out a full serving.  It poured a black body topped by a thin, foamy white head. Tastewise, it offered up a mild roasted malt backbone with notes of pumpkin and spice on top.  

While I suppose it’s a little bit late to tell you all to head on over to this event, I will say that the BeerRantsAndBooks crew had an excellent time.  I always welcome the chance to drink some fresh Ipswich Ale and the novelty of having poured from their tap mobiles made it extra special. Keep an eye on the brewery’s events page to see where they may be popping up next!

 

 

Ballast Point Brewing Company – Pumpkin Down

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Ballast Point Brewing Company, Beer, Beer Review, California, Craft Beer, Fall, Halloween, Pumpkin Beer, San Diego

I know I’ve made something of a big deal out of how I’m no longer interested picking up random pumpkin beers anymore, but I couldn’t help myself when I came across this one.  Scottish ales have a way of drawing me in and this one being a Scottish/pumpkin ale combination seemed too intriguing to pass up.

 

Beer Name: Pumpkin Down

Brewery: Ballast Point Brewing Company (San Diego, CA)

Style: Scottish Ale with Pumpkin

ABV: 5.8%

Description: Setting out to offer up a unique take on pumpkin beer, the brewery used their Scottish Ale as a base and the added a “boatload” of roasted pumpkin and some subtle spices to round it out.  You can read all about it here.

Appearance: Dark amber body topped off by a thin, fizzy off-white head that did not stick around long enough for the photo.

Smell: Faintly sweet caramel malts overtaken by that usual blend of pumpkin and fall spices.

Taste: Similar to the smell but not as spicy as I might have thought.  Nice blend of toffee sweetness and biscuity malts up-front.  This was followed by a pronounced vegetal pumpkin presence that started up around mid-sip and hung over the remainder of the beer.  The pumpkin taste peaked just at the finish of the sip where it was joined by a moderate hit of spices to close out the experience.

Mouthfeel: The body was on the thinner side and the carbonation level was slightly above moderate.

Hype: Just my personal hopes and dreams.  I like Scottish ales and I’ve like several other offerings from this brewery, so I was pretty interested in how this would taste.

Overall: I didn’t like this nearly as much as I had hoped I would.  The pumpkin taste came on just a bit too strong which in turn made the spices, which were otherwise subtle, a bit too pronounced for my liking.  This meant ending each sip on kind of a down note which was disappointing after such a promising start.  Could have used a bit more body as well.  Oh well, just another lesson to be learned about the dangers of pumpkin beer I guess.

Cisco Brewers Inc. – Pumple Drumkin

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Cisco Brewers Incorporated, Fall, Halloween, Massachusetts, Nantucket, New England, October, Pumpkin Beer, Pumpkins

As a matter of principle, I limit my pumpkin beer intake to the month of October.  While I don’t plan on drinking many of them this year, there are some old favorites I’m looking to pick up if I get the opportunity to do so.  This one in particular has been a go to of mine for a few years and after seeing it in its new canned format I couldn’t resist.

Beer Name: Pumple Drumkin

Brewery: Cisco Brewers Inc. (Nantucket, MA)

Style: Pumpkin Ale

ABV: 6.0%

Description: I don’t have much to offer about this one other than to say it’s a spiced pumpkin ale.  The brewery website seems a bit sparse on this entry

Appearance: Poured a cloudy orange/copper body with a thin off white head.  A steady stream of small bubbles ran up the sides of the glass.

Smell: Sweet caramel malt and a light blend of fall spices.

Taste: Steady, mild pine bitterness throughout, though probably strongest at the start.  A subtly sweet malt base blended with a very slight amount of vegetal pumpkin roughly mid-sip.  Also present here is a distinct, but not overdone, layer of fall spices.

Mouthfeel: Medium bodied with slightly higher than moderate amount of carbonation.

Hype: Just my own memory.  I’ve been enjoying this for a while now and was looking forward to getting reacquainted.  

Overall: I think perhaps this was a little overhyped in my memory.  Don’t get me wrong, I still found it very good and far above average in the category of pumpkin beers, but not quite the all round all-star I had built it up to be.  I do still definitely recommend trying this out (especially if pumpkin beers are your thing), but I do want to be mindful of setting the right expectation.

Boulevard Brewing Company – Funkier Pumpkin

Tags

Beer, Beer Review, Boulevard Brewing Company, Craft Beer, Fall, Pumpkin Beer

October is here!  Fall is in the air, the MLB playoff are upon us, and Halloween is right around the corner.  October also signifies the one month out of the year in which I’ll drink pumpkin beer.  Although I am not going to repeat last year’s blind pumpkin tasting, which turned into something of a chore towards the end, I will pick up a few here and there that seem worth trying out.

Beer Name: Funkier Pumpkin

Brewer: Boulevard Brewing Company

Style: Pumpkin Spiced Sour Ale

ABV: 8.5%

Description: The brewery’s website offers a variety of notes about the beer here, but to sum it all up what we have here is a subtle pumpkin/spice ale designed to feature Boulevard’s house brettanomyces strain.  The beer came in a corked and caged 750 ml bottle that I believe cost around $13.  I poured this offering into a teku glass, just to mix things up a bit.

Appearance: A thick, foamy off-white head sat atop a golden orange/amber body.  After wiping away condensation, I could just barely see through to the other side of the glass.

Smell: Light bretty smell with a hint pumpkin in the background.

Taste: This broke down into a beer of three distinct tastes.  I started out with subtly sweet vegetal pumpkin that quickly gave way to the common fall spice blend found in many pumpkin beers.  As the spices started peaking somewhere just short of my (admittedly low) maximum tolerance for them, a moderate yeasty brett presence took over the beer and smothered the spices in a funky, earthy blanket.  There was a huge flavor spike at the point where the spices gave way to the brett, making a combination of the two the primary flavor of this beer

Mouthfeel: Light bodied and bubbly on both my tongue and back of my mouth.  I found the little bubbles really intensified the funky flavors of the finish.

Hype Factor: I remember really liking Boulevard’s Tank 7 Saison, but otherwise I had no preconceived ideas or expectations going into this.  Picked it up because it caught my eye.

Overall: This was a pretty good beer.  It was a bit intense drinking a whole bomber of it by myself, but overall I enjoyed the experience.  Definitely in a different league than most of the generic, mediocre pumpkin ales I sampled last year, I liked that it had something different to offer.

Final Thoughts on this Year’s Pumpkin Beer Tasting

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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