Pumpkin beers: Redux

Still on the Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout

This is last year's pumpkin beer article.

Pumpkin beers are full and malty beers, very different from the mass-produced beers from Budweiser, Miller and Coors. But they are not so different that they will turn off someone who has never explored these ales before. The pumpkins offer a taste of the season and a chance to add some non-mainstream flavors to your football Saturdays and Sundays or your family meals.

The other similarity you will find is that almost all of them include the same rich spices you will find later this year in the holiday ales. Almost all of the brewers list their spices on the bottle. The differences come in how the pumpkin and spices work together, what color the beer comes out, how easy it is to drink and just what the pumpkin tastes like.

Saranac Pumpkin Ale, brewed in Utica, NY, is one of the best of the bunch, using cinnamon, allspice, cloves and vanilla. This pumpkin ale pours very dark, and you can taste it for a good 10 seconds after you finish. It’s malty and tasty, but the pumpkin hides under the surface.

Anheuser Busch, (yes, the one in St. Louis, Mo.) continues to try its hand at microbrew-style beers and comes through with a solid one in Jack’s Pumpkin SpiceAle. As you would expect from a big company, it’s a bit thinner than the others. It is more of a medium color and has a good spicy nose, mainly cinnamon. The spice mix here is “including nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and clove,” according to the bottle. It has a very comfortable taste which is not too metallic and is very easy to drink. Again, you taste mostly spice, especially the cinnamon, and not too much pumpkin. Here’s the choice for a group of people who usually drink Budweiser and Miller.

Oddly enough, one of the old hands of the pumpkin genre is Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale, a Coors product imported from its Canadian subsidiary, Blue Moon Brewing Company. This one lists clove, nutmeg and allspice and, again, is thinner than the micros. It’s darker and the spice dominates the smell. It’s more mainstream, not as malty as many of the others and has some citrus notes to it. The spices tend to clump together.

The folks at Shipyard Brewing Co., in Portland, Maine, have a steady competitor in Pumpkinhead Ale, but they play coy, not listing the spices. The pumpkin is there, though subtle most of the time. This is one of the lightest colored of the whole group and is easy to drink. There seems to be cinnamon and allspice high in the test. This Pumpkinhead – in fact all the Shipyard beers – have a non-traditional taste because Shipyard uses entirely British malts in its beers. The beer is easy to drink and a good introduction for those who are not used to microbrews.

Just over the Maine state border, in Portsmouth, N.H., Smuttynose Brewing – which is named after a harbor seal – puts out a golden-brown “Pumpkin Ale,” which is “ale brewed with pumpkin puree and spices.” The taste is not overwhelming and a little metallic, but not as much as some others. It’s not overly malty and, like the Harvest Moon, is a touch citrusy.

The nice folks at Brooklyn Brewery who make Post Road Pumpkin Ale are also coy with us, saying only that it is “ale brewed with pumpkin and spices.” This is a medium-dark ale that really does not have a strong taste of either pumpkin or spices. This is contract-brewed for Brooklyn in Utica and is not as well-made as most Brooklyn products. In some respects, it tastes more like an Oktoberfest than a pumpkin ale.

There are some microbreweries that specialize in more experimental beers, often higher alcohol and made a little differently than most brews. These are often available only in four-packs or the 22-ounce bottles called “bombers.” For reference, most mass-market beers are between 4 and 5 percent alcohol by volume (ABV).

The Dogfish Head Punkin Ale comes in at 7 percent and is, according to the label, “A full-bodied brown ale with real pumpkin, brown sugar, cinnamon & nutmeg.” It is well-made, as all Dogfish Head beers are, but the pumpkin taste is not very clear at the outset and only comes after the beer has been allowed to warm and you’ve had more than a few sips. Cinnamon is a toughie for brewers, and it does not quite work here. It also has a slightly metallic mouth feel. It’s a good beer, but more expensive per bottle than anything so far.

Weyerbacher Brewing Co. of Easton, Pa., presented its Imperial Pumpkin Ale, which the label says as an ale “brewed with Pumpkin and Spices (Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Cardamom, Cloves).” Imperial, by the way, is microbrewery short-hand for higher alcohol. This one checks in at 8 percent, which is pretty hefty. It’s also a pretty good beer. It has a very full taste with a slight metallic tinge but the pumpkin hides a bit. You can taste the alcohol clearly at the top of your mouth, and the cinnamon comes through strong at the end. The malt and the nutmeg are fairly clear, as well, and in all, it really tastes like pumpkin pie spice.

Perhaps the most fascinating of all was Imperial Pumking, “ale brewed with pumpkins,” from Southern Tier Brewing Company in Lakewood, NY. This is the real thing; as Mrs. Short Pours said. “It tastes like pumpkin, and it tastes like beer.” That’s it in this one, all pumpkin, no spices, and it’s the better for it. A caramel brown, this beer fills your mouth, without much of a metallic taste at all, and for a beer that is 9 percent alcohol, it doesn’t taste nearly as strong as the Weyerbacher. It is an excellent beer for a frosty autumn night.

In some areas, it’s easy to get fresh-brewed pumpkin beers on tap. In Salem, Mass., for instance, the Beer Works brew pub always has its own Pumpkinhead Ale up, and it’s easily one of the best of the breed. During the fall, it’s up at the BBWs near the Boston Garden and Fenway Park. The Littlest Short Pour lives at nearby Simmons College, and I believe we need to send her on a mission.

In my area of New York State, Brown’s Brewing in Troy has a very drinkable pumpkin ale that pours a golden brown. It has a good dose of malt, is less spiced than the others and is not very bitter. It is available only on tap or in 64-ounce growlers at the brewpub.

Kicking off another pumpkin season

Today’s second “Beer to Drink While Posting” is:
Great Divide (Colo.) Brewing Co.
Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout

I spied the leaves beginning to turn as I drove home in western Vermont yesterday. That means it’s time to bring out the pumpkin beer review.

Last Fall, I drank as many pumpkins as I could find for a newspaper article. I will post it shortly

I have already started up again this year, having the Southampton pumpkin on tap at The Local in Saratoga Springs and bringing home a four-pack of the Dogfish Head version. The Southampton was a touch light, and the Dogfish was consistently good. I also picked up something new during the Vermont trip, Wolaver’s Certified Organic Will Stevens’ Pumpkin Ale, which is named after the guy who grows the pumpkins.

The Wolaver’s is brewed by Otter Creek in Middlebury, Vt., and I have not tried as many of the beers as I should have. This one I liked because it was more of a real “pumpkin” beer, rather than a spiced beer with pumpkins. The Dogfish Punkin Ale takes a chance and uses cinnamon, which sometimes does not translate well in the brewing process, and this is one of those cases.

Big, Extreme, Imperial and even Leviathan-like

Today’s “Beer to Drink While Posting” Is:
Rock Art (Vt.) Brewery’s IPA (II) Double IPA

One of the things you never really notice until you start drinking craft-brewed beer is the alcoholic content of your beer. It’s beer, right? Drink more than one an hour and you start to get drunk. What’s more to know?

Take Budweiser and Michelob, for instance. Smooth, easy-to-drink (unless you don’t like the taste any more) and 5 percent alcohol. Miller Genuine Draft? It’s at 4.66, and the dreaded “Natty Ice” is 5.9 percent. Guinness (the tall can) is 4.2.

OK, so those are some numbers, and to be honest, many craft beers are right down there with them. But there are a number of movements afoot in the craft-brewing industry, and for several years there has been a move to push for “Imperial” beers, which basically means “high alcohol” beers. They are referred to as “Big Beers.

In fact, a number of craft breweries have separate series for their higher-alcohol beers. Smuttynose Brewing Co, in Portsmouth, NH simply calls its series the Big Beer Series,” and it includes a barleywine, a wheat wine and an IPA that range from 9 to 11 percent. (The measure is also called ABV or alcohol by volume.). There are other beers in the series, including an excellent Farmhouse Ale, which are down in the 7 percent range.

By the way, despite the name, barleywines and wheat wines are beers.

Stone Brewing from California is also at the forefront, pushing strong beers past 10 percent. These include Old Guardian Barleywine, Double Bastard Ale, Imperial Russian Stout, and Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout (a recent and very happy experience). Some of the Stone beers, including Old Guardian, are released on a yearly basis, which each release being different from the others.

While the Big Beer and Stone beers – along with others -- have been around a good bit, Harpoon Brewery in New England is debuting its “Leviathan” series with a kicked-up version of the Triticus Wheat Wine that was one of the stars of its 100 Barrel series. This beer was designed by Jason and Todd Alstrom, the co-founders of my favorite beer site, www.beeradvocate.com, and the publishers of Beer Advocate magazine. The original Triticus – a personal favorite – was 11.4 ABV, but for the Leviathan series, it’s been pushed to 14 percent. Unfortunately, it is only available on draft and is released in a limited area that includes Boston and Windsor, Vt. The rest of the series will come out in 22-ounce bombers, the standard for many of the big beers.

Southern Tier from Lakewood, N.Y., is one of the great underappreciated breweries. They have done an Imperial series for a long time. Beers in that series., which has a range to 8 to 10 ABV, include my all-time favorite pumpkin beer – Pumking – as well as the obligatory Barleywine, a Wheat Ale, a Red Ale, a cherry saison and a Helles. These are all limited releases.

Southern Tier also has a Blackwater Stout series that is excellent and includes four beers at this point – an Oatmeal Stout, a Coffee Stout, a Chocolate Stout and a really intriguing Crème Brulee Milk Stout (think vanilla) that was part of the genesis for this post. These range from 10 to 12 ABV.

Rock Art Brewing, which has limited distribution in the Northeast, also has an “Extreme” beer series and also features a 10-percent ABV barleywine called “The Vermonster.” Yes, today’s posting beer is from the Extreme series. It’s a good, solid Double IPA at 8 percent. Not painfully hoppy, nor is there a strong taste of alcohol. It’s tasty and does not have the soapy aftertaste you sometimes get with this style.

There are many others to look at, but the last one I will mention is the Pompier, from Pennichuck Brewing Co. in Milford, NH. It is an English Style barleywine aged in oak whisky barrels. It’s an excellent beer and comes in a swing-top one liter bottle and checks in at 12.1 percent. A “pompier,” as the label tells us, is a person who works at the fire brigade.

These beers are very different and are a challenge for even experienced craft beer drinkers. You also have to consider that a bomber of an 11-percent beer has more alcohol than four cans of Budweiser. Be careful with these. I generally drink them at home or have no more than one or two in a bar. Many establishments serve this in half-servings because of the alcohol.