‘Tis the Season for Pumpkin Beer

Fall is here, and along with it comes the arrival of pumpkin beer–one of my favorite things about my favorite season. I’m not much of a drinker, but there’s something so iconically autumnal about pumpkin beer that I find it hard to resist. What can I say? I’m a sucker for all things autumn.

A couple years ago, a friend of mine and I decided to do a little bit of a pumpkin beer taste test. It was pretty informal and not at all comprehensive; we tested three or four beers, and sadly I can’t remember which ones they were or which ones we liked best. For that reason (and because I love pumpkin beer), I thought it might be a good idea to repeat that tasting experiment, and so this past weekend we headed out to his local beer vendor and stocked up on some pumpkin brews.

We bought (one bottle of each):

• Blue Moon Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale (my friend is a beer snob of the highest order, and for this selection I caught no end of shit)
• Pumking
• Williamsburg Ale Werks’ Pumpkin Ale
• Small Patch Pumpkin Harvest Ale
• Ace Pumpkin Cider
• Southampton Pumpkin Ale
• Lakefront Pumpkin Lager

Of those seven, we tried three (between the two of us– we split each bottle). The rest are going to have to wait for my next visit to Philadelphia (where my friend lives) since by the time I got through half of my third glass, I was beginning to fall asleep. The thing is, I’m hoping that our second round of tasting ends up being significantly better than our first. While the taste test we did a couple years ago was pretty successful, our results this time around left a lot to be desired.

Up first: the pumpkin cider. I picked this one out primarily out of curiosity. I like ciders in general, but I wasn’t at all sure what to expect from a pumpkin cider. As it turns out, it’s good! Typical cider color and effervescence, with a complex series of flavors. I like for my pumpkin brews to taste like pumpkin pie, and although this one was on the sweet side, it did have that all spice hint that I really like. My friend Mike and I agreed that this was a good choice. I’d definitely drink it again, and I recommend picking it up if you see it around.

Second: the pumpkin lager. Because I was trained to like beer by a beer snob (see above), I tend to gravitate to ales more often than lagers. But from what I can tell, pumpkin lagers are not all that common so it seemed like this one was worth checking out. My verdict on this one is a pretty solid meh. I could take it or leave it, really. It wasn’t unpleasant in any way, but it definitely didn’t have that pumpkin pie taste that I’d been craving. Maybe my indifference toward it comes from my lack of familiarity with lagers. I don’t think I would bother getting this again.

Third: the Southampton. The label advertised a pumpkin taste with vanilla extract. Personally, I didn’t find it to have much of a pumpkin taste at all. Mike remarked that the vanilla seemed a lot stronger than the pumpkin, and I also didn’t taste much vanilla. Maybe that says something about how prominent the pumpkin was. Neither one of us finished our half-glass of this one; not only was it not a tasty pumpkin beer, I’d say it wasn’t much of a tasty beer at all. I’m sure it will come as no surprise when I say I wouldn’t recommend this one.

With the exception of the cider, this was a somewhat disappointing bunch! I’m still getting teased about picking out a Blue Moon brew, so I’m hoping that during the next round of tasting, that one will blow the rest of them out of the water with its awesome bouquet of pumpkin, nutmeg, cinnamon, and hint of vanilla. A girl can dream, can’t she?

Have your pumpkin beer experiences this fall been more successful than mine? If you’ve found a winner, share it in the comments!