Yes, it's the same post once again, kind of. This is the 4th time I've posted this basic article. But, there is slightly more content, as I tried and reviewed 6 new pumpkin beers. The new reviews are marked with an asterisk (*) in front of them.
Since it’s the
Halloween season I thought I’d do a post about the brew of the season—pumpkin
beers. By doing so I may be risking alienating (or boring) any
non-American readers, because pumpkin beers appear to be a nearly exclusive
American beverage. Also, these beers are probably pushing the “exotic”
title, as due to their type’s popularity explosion in the past decade or so
they’re probably more like “slightly unusual.” But what the hell—I want
to post about at least one food or beverage with a tie to Halloween this month,
so let’s get on with it.
In researching pumpkin
beers, I was surprised to learn that their history is extensive. Like
before the U.S. was even a country. One website I consulted
noted that America’s first folk song, written in 1643, was a satire about
eating (and drinking, in the form of pumpkin ales) nothing but pumpkins and
parsnips. The lyrics I viewed weren’t that funny to me, but humor can be
culturally and time period bound, and this song is over 350 years old, so I’ll
give it a break, and not mock it. During this period, evidently malt was
hard to come by, so early European colonists looking to brew beer turned to a
local plant that was a good source of fermentable sugars, the humble
pumpkin. As a result, pumpkin ale was quite popular, especially in the
1700’s, along with regular porters and ales. A recipe for making it
survives from 1771, even. However, this popularity took a major hit in
the early 1800’s. Pumpkin ale was seen as passé, and apparently malt
sources weren’t such a problem to easily locate anymore. Regular grain
ales, porters, and then lagers especially came to dominate
the U.S. beer scene in the mid to late 1800’s, and up until the
present day.
However, in the early
days of the craft, microbrewing movement, in the late 1980’s, a brewer decided
to experiment, and reintroduce the pumpkin beer. This brewer, Buffalo
Bill’s Brewery (out of the Pacific Northwest) even used one of founding
father George Washington’s personal recipes for their prototype (although the
commercial version was apparently different, and used pumpkin pie spices in
place of actual pumpkin to make it). Over the next couple of decades
pumpkin beers steadily grew in popularity, and now hundreds
of U.S. breweries offer them.
And this in itself
produced surprising information. I didn’t realize how polarizing an issue
pumpkin beer is. People seem to mostly love it or hate. I read a
particularly vicious quote about the style from a Washington City Times beer
writer, Orr Stuhl: “Even picking a favorite is like picking a favorite
airborne disease.” Looking through some comments in the websites and
blogs I looked at, I saw some similar opinions—how much they hated pumpkin
beers, and in some cases, how they hated that they were sold, and how those
that enjoy them are not “real” beer drinkers, etc. These were balanced by
comments defending pumpkin beers, many of whom extolled (or at least
appreciated) the style.
I myself, not shockingly, love to try new types of beer (and meat, organs, cheeses, vegetables, fruit—you get the idea), and I’m not adverse to all the fruit-flavored beer types, either, like lambics, krieks, winter seasonals—some are quite tasty. Although I have to say that even the good ones, like decent ciders, are usually so sweet that I can only have one or two in a sitting, and can’t drink them all night. But as a switch up, I can appreciate them from time to time. Over the years I’ve tried the occasional pumpkin beer, and recall liking some, so I went into this project with enthusiasm. But enough history and chatter, let’s get to the rankings. I deliberately chose a mix of larger, macrobrewery offering, and smaller, local microbrews. And these are listed, worst to best, using the school A(excellent) through F (failure) rankings.
Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin Ale: D-. Orange-yellow color, no real odor. Odd taste, not good. Much too boozy (it's 9% alcohol), and kind of overly sweet/sour-y. Full disclosure--it's possible it might have been an expired bottle, or completely stale. I couldn't read the "born on/drink by" date on the container. Overall it was terrible, and very difficult to finish. Maybe I'll try another one if I can find a container with a legible date, so I know it's still fresh enough.
New Belgium Voodoo Ranger Atomic Pumpkin: D-. Orange-yellow hue, no real odor. Starts off okay but ends badly. Spicy, in a bad way. Unpleasantly bitter and astringent. Peppery, also in a negative way. Drinkable, but just barely. Kind of surprising, since I like most New Belgium offerings in general, and their other Voodoo Ranger kinds in particular.
Southampton Pumpkin Ale (New York State):
D. Very nasty, and astringent. Not good at all.
Starr Hill Boxcar Pumpkin Porter (Virginia):
D. I like that they tried a different beer style—most pumpkin beers are
ales or lagers—but the result was tremendously disappointing. It was
tasteless, like water. Akin to a light beer—that’s how watery it was.
Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale (Colorado):
D. Thin, tasteless, and not worth it.
Long Trail Unfiltered Pumpkin Ale (Vermont):
D. Bad. Metallic-tasting. Not pumpkin-y at all. What
happened? Long Trail is usually a quality brewery—a rare miss.
Buffalo Bill’s Brewery American Original Pumpkin Ale (Pacific Northwest): D+. You may recall from above, this was the one that reintroduced the style back in the late 1980’s. So I expected it to be exceptional, since so many copied it, or at least the idea. But no, for me. I found it only slightly pumpkin-y, and a lot astringent.
* Big Muddy Brewing Pumpkin Smasher (Illinois): C-. Yellow-brown color, malty/vanilla-y odor. Thin, kind of weak. Spice bite at end. But needs to be much stronger. It's disappointing how mundane this was, especially given its title.
* Evil Twin Milkshake Style IPA with Pumpkin and Spices (Connecticut): C-. Yellow. Lemon-y odor. Was sour, and not sweet. Some pumpkin spices. But not strong. Not a good sour or Berliner Weisse. Don't know what this was, but it wasn't great. Weird, innovative take on pumpkin spice beer, but not good as a sour, either. So points for the idea, but the execution wasn't there.
Lakefront Pumpkin Lager (Wisconsin): C-.
Disappointing. Only a hint of pumpkin flavor. Watery and weak.
* Glasstown Brewing Company, Clash of the Pumpkins (New Jersey): C. Dark brownish-red color, malty/vanilla-y odor. Kind of thin. Some spice bite, but should be more potent. Hides its alcohol content (7.2%) well. Disappointing. Not terrific, but bland. Cool movie-tie can painting on the label, though.
* Southern Tier Caramel Pumking Imperial Ale (New York): C. Amber colored, sugary/malty odor. Almost overwhelmingly sweet, but ends bitter somehow. Hides alcohol content (8.6%) well. Hard to rate.
Post Road Pumpkin Ale (Brooklyn Brewery, NY): C. Okay, not great. Slightly bitter in an unpleasant way.
Ship Bottom Imperial Pumpkin Ale: C. Orange-brown hue. Not much of an odor. Kind of mediocre. Not great, not terrible. Not extremely pumpkin-y, but not bland. Okay, I suppose. Hides its alcohol content (9.4%!) well, at least.
Shocktop Pumpkin Wheat (Missouri):
C. Mediocre. Had slight cinnamon taste.
Shipyard Brewing Pumpkinhead (Maine):
C. Drinkable. Not very pumpkin-y. Rather bland and
inoffensive.
Wolaver’s Pumpkin Ale (Vermont): C. Just
average. Kind of bland-ish. Not bad, just not a very compelling
flavor.
* Flying Monkeys Craft Brewery Paranormal Imperial Pumpkin Ale (Canada): C+. Brownish red hue, malty odor. A little thin at first, but ends better, with a spice bite. Hides enormous alcohol content (10%!) well. Would have liked a more consistently stronger flavor. Not what I expected from its odor.
Ithaca Country Pumpkin (NY):
C+. Okay, weakish. Not great.
Great South Bay Splashing Pumpkin Ale (Long
Island, NY): C+. Pumpkin-y at first, but ends a little weakly.
Sam Adams Harvest Pumpkin Ale
(Massachussetts): C+. Slightly better than average, but still not
very special.
The Traveler Beer Company Jack-o Shandy
(Vermont) C+. Really different—it’s a shandy (lemon peel) mixed
with pumpkin. Weird. Flavor pairing is a little off-putting and
strange, but somehow is not terrible, and is oddly drinkable.
Uinta Punk’n Harvest Pumpkin Ale (Utah):
B-. Nice odor. Okay, a tad blandish. Still a marked
improvement over most of the others.
Harpoon Pumpkin UFO Unfiltered Ale (New
England): B-. A bit weak, but better than average. Slightly more
pumpkin-y.
* New Jersey Beer Company Hypnotic Pumpkin Ale (New Jersey, of course): B. Brownish-red hue, slight vanilla odor. Overly carbonated. Odd flavor. Tasted kind of sour rather than sweet. Strange, but not without its charms. Pretty good.
Harpoon Imperial Pumpkin (New England):
B. This was a surprise, as I usually do not like stouts at all.
Tastes very heavy and strong (it’s 10.5% alcohol!). Slightly spicy.
Weird. Has sweetish, vanilla-y burn at end. Really grew on me.
Southern Tier Pumking (NY): B. Sweet,
vanilla-y. Good. Hides alcohol content (8.6%) well. To be
fair, it didn’t taste very pumpkin-y, but it was tasty all the same.
Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale (New Hampshire):
B+. Nice odor, very good. Spicey. Tastes normal at first,
than pumpkin flavor really kicks in nicely.
Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale (Pennsylvania):
A-. Very good. Blend of spices was well done.
In conclusion, looking at my
rankings, I’m struck that I’m apparently an exception to the “love it or hate
it” dichotomy. Slightly over half (17) I found to be mediocre and average
(“C” rating), and I disliked (“D”) 7, and really enjoyed (“B to A”) 9. And even the 7 lowest ranked ones weren’t terrible,
weren’t drain pours or anything. So it appears, if I generalize, that I
kind of like the style, but only slightly.
* Furthermore, I’ve
been a little puzzled, and amused, by the recent furor over “pumpkin
spice.” It appears that some people are really upset over this flavor
being added to coffee/lattes, doughnuts, cakes, candy, candles, etc. I
get that many people don’t like pumpkin spice flavoring, or are a little
annoyed that it’s being offered in tons of products, and you see the words
everywhere, but it still seems like an overreaction. It seems pretty easy
to just not order the offending flavor, and just ignore the fad for a few
weeks.
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