This is top 5 Pumkin Beer right here, especially a newly tapped keg. Adding pumpkin and spice to a brown ale, and adding brown sugar, makes this a decadent treat of a beer. Pumpkin Pie in a freakin bottle. Without crust. Except for the bready malt flavor that pops up after a sip. Just add whipped cream. It has a heavier feel than a lot of the pumpkin beers but that 7% is hidden pretty well. It's a classic pumpkin beer that has been done right for several years. It has felt a little lighter to me in some years, but it's always got a sweet brown ale flavor. They've had different artwork on the bottle every year for the last few years too. Spooky.
*UPDATE: 2017- It's now sold in six packs! Hell yeah! The artwork is a little toned down too.
8. PUMPKINFEST (Terrapin Beer Company) ABV: 6.10% or 5.5%
OK, history lesson time. This brew was originally a one-off, but then it became their fall seasonal. It used to be at 6.1% a few years ago but has been labelled at 5.5 for a few years. When it became part of the fall rotation it was sold in bottles in 4 packs for close to 10 bucks, then they started selling it in 6 packs canned for about the same price a sixer. Most importantly, Terrapin sold 25% of their asses a few years ago to MillerCoors(which is what the name became in the U.S. in 2007ish after Molson Coors joined withSABMiller, out of the U.K., I think) and sure enough they sold the rest of their shitpukerholes to them earlier this year. And MillerCoors(2nd largest brewer based on the money they rake in) is uniting with AB-Inbev(largest brewer based on money they suck out of people's asses) to make one giant liversoulsucking piece of capitalist shit..... starting to get the picture? It's a tragic mess for beerlovers. Anyways, that's the long version.
About the beer...............
Top 3, a few years ago. A near-perfect wedding of an Oktoberfest style and a pumpkin beer. The roasty maltiness melds perfectly with the spicy gourdiness, creating what I would consider the definitive fall seasonal beer. Very sweet, and not cloying, but very much a pumpkin pie beer. Even with the amount of real pumpkin I taste there's still a slight spiciness, but not overdone. Another one that is unbelievable on draft, maybe even top 2. I will sorely miss this beer, and it was so fun to live in a town that did this kinda beer so perfectly. Oh well, guess I may as well cry over the live Spook Shows at the local theater here being gone too. And cry about all the idiots at the L5P Halloween Fest and Parade lately( I know I'm one). But there will be a lot more crying when I get to what Terrapin replaced Pumpkinfest with in 2016.
9. UFO PUMPKIN Unfiltered Pumpkin Ale (Harpoon Brewery) ABV: 5.9%
Yup, this time was all about what I consider some of the best pumpkin beers out there, and let me tells ya there's probably going to be more than 5 beers in my top 5. I promise it won't go much higher than 6 tho.
Here's Harpoons UFO Pumpkin, and when this brewery uses UFO it means UnFiltered Offering. An Unfiltered pumpkin beer. Get it? Here's some notes from 10-23-12, the first time I ever had this brew and the same night from when I reviewed Shock Top (the 1st review).
"Watching Hammer's Mummy, The Fly, and Downton Abbey(?) tonight."
"Nice yeasty wheaty pumpkin beer with slight spiciness."(spiciness means cinnamon, clove, etc)
"Stir well, lotsa sediment. Poured into a weizen glass."
"Like a Hefeweizen with pumpkin pie flavor added, very different than the malty heavy punkin beers."
Basically, this is a much lighter beer than a brown ale or oktoberfest beer. I enjoy this one for late summer/autumn day sessions and for pounding at parties at night. This is the beer I drink at the Halloween Fest every year. Perfect balance of pumpkin, yeast and spice. It is the most refreshing pumpkin beer I've had. Ever. I like that it was almost the opposite of the pumpkin beer styles that I thought I was seeing a pattern of enjoyment with....which would be oktoberfest or brown ale styles! My notes say I got it again on 10-27-12, watching Svengoolie show Werewolf Of London, and that I basically had the same opinion. I've gotten this beer every autumn since and love that you can get it in bottles, for at home to pour into a weizen glass, or in cans to take to the beach, party, festival, whatever..
To this year, 2016, I still love the light refreshing but earthy squashiness flavor from this. I'll moan about some other malty pumpkin beers that try to wed pumpkin to oktoberfest styles, but there's not many other beers I've tried to compare this bad boy to.
UPDATE 2017--- I haven't seen this around yet, but I saw HARPOON PUMPKIN CIDER. Uh-oh.....
to be continued.....
10. CRANBERRY PUMPKINFEST (Terrapin Beer Company) ABV:5.5%
I usually review 3 beers at a time, but this guy had to be added on. Yes, Terrapin added cranberries to one of my favorite pumpkin beers this year(2016). Soda shop beer. There's a pump of cranberry syrup per ounce. The Big Boy restaurant pump trick. Yes, I was deeply pissed when I saw this, thinking they are just jumping on the sour bandwagon and ruining a perfect fall tradition. After all, they're completely owned by the man now! Jesus. I expect trendy half-assed versions of the experiments they originally turned me on with. Well, I am happy to report that it's not as bad as I thought it 'd be, though I think this will make a better Thanksgiving beer than Halloween beer. And that's not a bad thing. It's like when pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce meet on a gravy-smeared thanksgiving paper plate, and you can tell the cranberry came from a can and the pie was baked earlier in the week at a grocery store. In my blind pursuit of all beers Halloween I actually forget that thanksgiving is usually the time most people have pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce and we're some sort of freakies that relate pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns to a day a few weeks earlier. But why do they start selling pumpkin beers in August then? Oh, it's because most people think of them as autumn and Halloween beers that have no reason being in shelves in late November! So I'm right! We don't need another cranberry pumpkin beer, especially since there's a better one out there! And we'll get to that one in a later review. P.S. I don't really even know when thanksgiving is.
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