Pumpkin beer
Attack of the pumpkins!
With the seasonal flood of jack-o-lantern orange in the beer aisle, I decided to find out whether a pumpkin beer could ever be taken seriously. My roommate and I sampled the five kinds we could find at the grocery store.
According to CNN’s column, “The Good Life,” pumpkin is a flavor of renewed interest and experimentation since the microbrewing revolution (I think the author forgot to mention the marketing aspect). As the article points out, colonial American brewers used alternative ingredients, such the native pumpkin, to substitute the more expensive and scarce English barley. Pumpkin beer is typically mild, malty and dominated by associated pumpkin ingredients, such as ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and allspice.
We observed quite a variety in the beers we tasted, but they all had a weird pumpkinness that I just couldn’t get used to. Actually, it wasn’t the taste of pumpkin, as much as the overwhelming spices. With every new bottle came another doubtful smirk from my roommate. Mostly in agreement, I was beginning to reconsider our experiment and starting to give up the quest for a good pumpkin beer. But as I uncapped the next one and prepared for the worst, I found our first good beer. On the other hand, it didn’t really taste like pumpkin.
Considering the relatively spendy price, I wasn’t too impressed with these microbrew experiments. It leads me to me to wonder whether there will ever be a truly great pumpkin beer. I can’t do any better than the brewers, but my tip to trick-or-treaters is to stick with the pie.
Pumpkin Head Ale
Brewer: Silver moon Brewing, Bend OR
Nutmeg, nutmeg, nutmeg… When opening the beer, the aroma is promising. It offers an interesting tang that dries out.
Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale
Brewer: Portland Brewing
A sweet medium-bodied brew with more spice than pumpkin. Tingling.
Night Owl Pumpkin Ale
Brewer: Elysian
Strong presence of brown sugar. Thick and dark.
Pumpkinhead Ale
Brewer: Shipyard
Lighter orange start, with an aggressive aftertaste of spices that gets to the back of your throat.
Punkin Ale
Brewery: Dogfish Head Craft
A dark, full-bodied chocolaty taste. My Favorite out of the pumpkin beers we tried! (I tend to like the darker)
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Comments
Yes sir, the punkin ale was quite drinkable. the immediate taste is that of a typical northwest darker full-bodied ale, but the “pumpkin” flavor is noticable in the aftertaste and makes for an interesting twist, whereas the others seem to be dominated by the spices. I believe its was around $9 for a six-pack and the alcohol content is actually relatively high – 7%. I just noticed it recieved a B+ on the beer advocate http://beeradvocate.com/beer/style/72/
as well. Pumpkin pie? hmmm… not sure.
I take it you would recommend the Punkin Ale? Which one resembled pumpkin pie closest? (Although I’m not positive that would make for a good beer…)