Neshaminy Creek Punkel Dunkel

When I bought the bottle of Saucony Creek Maple's Mistress, I also grabbed Neshaminy Creek's pumpkin beer, Punkel Dunkel. This was a bit more money but probably only because I live in Philly, the most expensive place to buy beer. Best distribution, awful prices. I could complain about prices all day long but it's remarkably uninteresting so I'll drop it. Punkel Dunkel is, as you expect, a dunkel lager base with spices added. Nice to see them try a different base than a plain pale or a stout. Next year they should do a doppelbock mostly because that would be awesome.

That label is awesome. There is something about a pumpkin throwing up that makes me laugh. Cinnamon and caramel nose, very nearly smelled like apple pie. My first thought on taking a sip was a nice balance of brown sugar and apple pie spice. Some earthiness from the pumpkin too but mostly spice. The dunkel itself peaked through at times and was pretty solid. The caramel and breadiness of it added a decent amount of depth to the spice profile. As I drank more, I also got a little bit of raisin for whatever reason as the flavors melded a bit. Quite an enjoyable pumpkin beer, well balanced with a solid base. Seriously, though, guys, doppelbock next year.

Saucony Creek Captain Pumpkin's Maple Mistress

I was at my local store the other day, chatting with the owner, when I saw this bottle on the counter. I'd just been reading about it on BeerAdvocate so decided to grab one. This would be my first pumpkin beer of the season too so that's fun. Maple Mistress is a 9.5% Imperial Pumpkin made with pumpkin, maple syrup, and other spices.

Nose was full of cinnamon, nutmeg, and earthy pumpkin. Thicker mouthfeel, definitely due to the higher than average ABV. The initial wave of flavor is all cinnamon. Just a huge flavor bomb of it. Following that was a decent amount of bitterness, but that quickly faded into the cinnamon for me as I drank more of the glass. I didn't actually get much of the maple though others have claimed to taste it. If you like cinnamon, you'll love this, that's for sure. I'm not sure I liked it as much as, say, Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin, but it's a bit different because of the huge amount of cinnamon so that's something.

City Tap House Pumpkin Smash

Yesterday, City Tap House held an event called Pumpkin Smash. The main emphasis was obviously on pumpkin beers with the stars coming from Elysian, a brewery in Seattle. They sent over 7 different pumpkin beers, possibly the most of their pumpkin beers available at once outside of their own brewery and their own yearly pumpkin event. Pretty cool, ya know? Well, as long as you like pumpkin beers, I guess. I've only had one pumpkin this year, too, so it seemed like a good time to drink a few.

I started with a glass of the Elysian Night Owl. Not sure if it was from the pumpkin firkin or not unfortunately. And, yes, they turned an actual pumpkin into a firkin. It was pretty neat.

Southern Tier Oak Aged Pumking

Jo and I stopped in at the newly remodeled Bridgids the other day to check it out. The bar area actually looks the same and we didn't go back into the dining area so, well, can't tell you what changed. Whoops, oh well. We both agreed that the food was quite good now so there's that. She got a Left Hand Milk Stout which was nice and roasty and I got a Southern Tier Oak Aged Pumking which unfortunately was just terrible.

Smelled like flour, marshmallow, coconut, and vanilla. Hugely powerful nose, just crazy strong. The first sip mostly followed the nose with coconut and vanilla being the major points. Not much changed through the whole glass either.

While I managed to drink the whole thing, I'm actually not sure how I manged it considering it made me gag slightly at times. I really thought it was absolutely vile basically tasting like a coconut threw up in a glass of vanilla and then sprinkled some flour on it to cover the mess. To be fair, though, I do know people that actually like this so I don't really think it's flawed or actually bad, I just think it's disgusting to me.

Pumpkins on Christmas

Yeah, maybe having Pumpkin beers on Christmas seems odd, but we were having a pretty faithful Thanksgiving meal so why not Pumpkins? Besides, the two I decided to open aren't your average pumpkin beers anyway

The first I opened was Midnight Sun Treat, an imperial porter made with cocoa nibs, pumpkin, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.

Fegley's Brew Works Devious Imperial Pumpkin

I think I have one more pumpkin after this one so expect that one soon. The Devious is an imperial pumpkin coming in at 9%.

Huge cinnamon, allspice and clove nose. Just tons of spice. Interestingly enough, the flavors were way more smooth and understated. Started with some brown sugar maltiness with some cinnamon appearing along with a tiny bit of general spiciness and then finishing sweet. I liked the difference between the nose and body as it got you ready to drink this spice laden monster only to get a nice balanced sweetness instead. Really good pumpkin and something I'd get again.

River Horse Hipp-O-Lantern

I still have a few pumpkin beers I haven't written about yet and River Horse Hipp-O-Lantern is one of them.

Not much carbonation in it even with vigorous pouring. Smelled of allspice, brown sugar, and nutmeg. Jo and I couldn't figure out the exact spices but we both couldn't find any cinnamon although it may just be muted compared to the rest. The body was sweet and fruity with apple notes and a brown sugar finish. The spices were mostly present as background flavors as they were overpowered by the sweetness and brown sugar. I quite enjoyed this though I tend to enjoy most imperial pumpkins so I may be biased.

Heavy Seas Great Pumpkin

My wife and I went to brunch a little while ago at the Belgian Cafe and I thought a pumpkin beer would make a good start.

Sweet, fruity nose with a little cinnamon in it. Definitely on the more heavily spiced side of the pumpkin spectrum. Reminded me quite a bit of apple pie because of the sweetness and fruit in it. The flavor actually had more clove than cinnamon to my taste but it's mostly all the same in the end. I thought it was pretty similar to the Harpoon UFO pumpkin I had the other week although that was a bit more spiced than even this one.

This wasn't bad if you're looking for a more heavily spiced pumpkin though I wouldn't go out of my way for it. Be interested in trying the bourbon barrel aged version considering it seems like the beer would hold up but maybe next year since it's probably gone now.

Elysian Night Owl

While it's Monday now, I drank this one Friday night so I'm counting it as continuing pumpkin week. This time it was Elysian Night Owl, a pumpkin brewed with pumpkin seeds along with pumpkin and then fermented spices.

Bready malt nose with a hint of clove and cinnamon. Pretty sweet, almost fruity. Interesting dry pumpkin flavor, possibly a result of the seeds, with very understated spicing. Some malty sweetness comes through similar to the nose. Decent and pretty easy drinking pumpkin as a result of the reasonably tasty base beer. I do wish Elysian distributed their other two pumpkin beers here though since they are both supposed to be quite good and one is a stout. Ah well.

Harpoon UFO Pumpkin Ale

Up next in my week of pumpkins was the Harpoon UFO Pumpkin Ale. UFO stands for Unfiltered Offering if you're curious.

Sharp spiciness on this one. Clove, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg all appear in the nose. Jo thought it smelled like pumpkin bread as it had a certain baked bread quality to it. Taste followed with just a ton of spices and very little beer flavor. Just crazy. Definitely the spiciest pumpkin I've had so far. Cinnamon is the major flavor and I got some nutmeg and allspice along with it. I'll say that while it was too much cinnamon and spice for me, it will definitely appeal to people looking for pie in a glass. So pick it up if you like that style pumpkin ale.

Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale

Continuing my week of pumpkin, I opened a bottle of Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale last night.

Nose was clove and cinnamon like usual but a hint of grapefruit hops follow. Intriguing in a pumpkin ale, very different. Flavor started with some mild grapefruit then some spice followed. The finish was slightly bitter but in a pleasant way. I wasn't expecting much from this but it was really quite good and definitely a different pumpkin than most. You don't find many where the hops are actually present so it's a nice change of pace.

Southampton Pumpkin Ale

I finally missed a week of visiting the Kite & Key after like two months, but I had a good excuse in that I was in Dallas. For my return, I decided to continue my week of pumpkins and ordered the Southampton Pumpkin Ale.

Smelled sweet with some hints of clove and cinnamon. Taste basically followed with a lot of sweetness followed by the same clove and cinnamon. Not particularly special or different as it tasted like every other spiced pumpkin ale on the market. Ah well.

Cisco Pumple Drumkin

While I've already had a few pumpkin beers because of the Pumpkinfest at the Institute, the Cisco Pumple Drumkin was the first I've had at home.

Definitely the oddest named pumpkin beers. Smelled of clove and cinnamon, but not overpowering. Nice. Tasted pretty different than some others which was also nice. The major flavor in this was actually pumpkin with clove and cinnamon coming up behind it. I realize it sounds weird to be surprised a pumpkin beer tasted like pumpkin, but a lot of them end up just tasting like spices. Really enjoyed this one.

Pumpkinfest at The Institute

Last year, Jo and I attended the pumpkinfest at the Devil's Den which while fun mostly ended up with me trying two and then heading out since the list wasn't super interesting. While I never expected attending a pumpkinfest to be a yearly event, guess we've made it so after this past Saturday. This year we went to The Institute which had a very extensive list of pumpkin beers and a full pumpkin menu. The list numbered around 24 beers but the bar only has 16 taps so it meant that to try everything I wanted to on the list I had to be lucky. And, for the most part, I actually was although I did miss out on a couple. Gives me something to look forward to next year!

Dogfish Punkin at Kite & Key

Stopped by the Kite & Key yesterday and decided it was finally the season for pumpkin beers and ordered the Dogfish Head Punkin.

The nose hinted of cinnamon, nutmeg, and other pumpkin spices. First sip had a little cinnamon, nutmeg, and maybe some clove with just a little something following. Continues that way with the spices up front and then some mild hints of the base brown ale following.

Honestly I'm not a huge fan of Punkin. I feel like with the spices being as weak as they are the base needs to be a stronger flavored to make up for it. However, lots of people love Punkin so it's probably just that I like the more heavily spiced pumpkin beers.

Second Annual Beer Geek BBQ at the Hulmeville

With Natalie DeChico winning the Philly Beer Geek contest representing the Hulmeville Inn, it meant there was going to be a second BBQ party being held this year. If you remember, the last one had a barrel of bourbon Plead the Fifth (I had forgotten I got a full pint, awesome) so I had high hopes for this year. Luckily, Jeff delivered and then some. The US women's quarterfinal game was on, too, which was great.

I started with a glass of Central Water Bourbon Barrel Barleywine. (Shocking that I started with a barleywine, I know.)

Avery at Kraftwork

Now we come to what turned out to be my second favorite event of Philly Beer Week. The London Grill dinner was my top favorite, but this night came pretty close. There were two reasons I found this event at Kraftwork so cool. One, the Avery draft list was quite amazing and I got to try a whole lot of them because of their awesome flight deal. And, two, they hired a group called the Olde City Sideshow who were pretty awesome. Kraftwork is located on Girard St. in North Philly. Decently large bar with tables ringing the room. Avery is a brewery out of Colorado best known for, hmm, probably their Joe's Pilsener but for me it's their super high octane beers like Mephistopheles, Samael's, and The Beast. Thursday's event was named "The Greatest Show on Earth", I believe, and some of the staff actually dressed the part which was cool. Nice to see a bar have an actual theme and then follow through on it.

When we arrived, there wasn't any room at the bar so we stood near a friend's table and I enjoyed a glass of Avery Dihos Dactylion, an American Wild Ale.

Pumpkinfest at Devil's Den

Devil's Den has the best fests in Philadelphia (okay not really, but yeah hyperbole!).  First it was sourfest and now it's pumpkinfest.  Yeah fests!  This time wasn't quite as extravagant though.  They had 6 or so pumpkin beers on draft, 7 or so bottles of pumpkin and some pumpkin food dishes.  Thursdays are apparently much busier at Devil's Den (which is a good thing) and the bar was pretty full when we got there.  Luckily there was a table in the back so we didn't have to wait.  The food was quite good once again and the beer, as always, was reasonably priced.  It helps that they do half price drafts from 5-7.  Pretty amazing deal considering the quality of the beers they offer.  Devil's Den is pretty awesome.

I started with Brew Works Devious Imperial Pumpkin (I hope you can guess the style.)

Once again, terrible picture.  Stupid phone without a flash.  Oh well.  Poured a dark orange brown color with no head.  Very little carbonation in it.  Smelled of sweet pumpkin and some spices, more sweet than spicy.  The flavors were three fold.  A little tart at first, then a little alcohol, and finishing with pumpkin spices.  Pretty good pumpkin beer.  Thick, slightly syrup mouth feel but not cloying.  I didn't know what to expect, but I liked the Devious quite a bit. Fegley's Brew Works (Bethlehem and Allentown Brew Works are their brew pubs) makes quite a few good beers.

After that, I had what has been my favorite pumpkin beer, Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin.

More pumpkin pie spices than sweet pumpkin in the nose.  Get hints of cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon.  Flavors in this one are a bit smoother than the Devious.  More spices than sweet and they blend really well with the beer's natural flavors.  Some sweetness came out as I drank more.  Even at 8%, this is incredibly drinkable, even more so than the Devious.  This has been my favorite pumpkin in past years and this reaffirmed my belief.  I liked the Southern Tier Pumking I had two weeks ago but it was more pumpkin pie in a glass than beer.  This one is a really good beer with some pumpkin flavors.  Depends what you are looking for as far as what to like, but I prefer the Weyerbacher.

Oh and this was my 50th post on the blog since August 23rd.  Yeah 50!

Sunday at Capone's

Jo and I went to Capone's and enjoyed some great buffalo wings and beers.  As usual, their draft list was excellent and they have 25 cent wings on Sunday so it's a great place to watch some football.  They are doing some construction on the place, but the back entrance is open so don't think they are closed because of the closed front doors.

I started off with a sampler of 4 beers.

Starting with the front left beer and going clockwise I got: Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela, The Bruery Autumn Maple, Amager Imperial Stout, and Great Divide Espresso Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout. 

The Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela was interesting.  It's supposedly a Pumpkin Ale but I couldn't detect pumpkin in it at all.  It smelled lemony and sort of tart.  Just a little bit of head on the sampler, but I'm guessing there would be a bit more in a full glass.  The first sip was mildly tart as well but not too strong.  Very smooth flavor.  It was similar to Nodding Head's Berliner Weiss but with more body and not quite as tart.  As I drank more of it, the beer got more tart but nothing crazy.

After that was the Bruery Autumn Maple.  Smelled mildly Belgian as it's made with some Belgian yeast.  At first, there was only some yam flavor with a mild sweetness.  Hard to find the Belgian flavors in the beer as a result of the yams and maple.  Nice thick mouth feel to it.  The second full sip I took was just full of yams.  I couldn't believe it and took another sip just to be sure I was sure of the flavor.  Super interesting to be drinking that taste out of a glass.  I liked it but a full glass may have been a bit much.

Following that was the Amager Imperial Stout.  Amager is apparently a brewery in Denmark, who knew.  The Imperial Stout had some slight roasty notes and a little alcohol on the nose.  The taste, however, was full of roasted malt flavor with no alcohol presence.  As it warmed up, the alcohol was slightly noticeable, but not out of place.  Not a bad Imperial Stout but nothing too special to me.

Finally, the Espresso Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout.  I talked about the family of Yeti stouts from Great Divide in this post, my first time at Capone's.  This will be the second of the four I've had and hopefully I'll be able to have the other two at some point.  Jo smelled some wood flavors in this but I didn't notice much of anything.  Pretty big espresso flavor in the first sip, but it wasn't crazy.  Nothing like Founders Breakfast Stout for example.  The coffee does sit on the tongue after each sip though.  Nice thick mouth feel to this one.  As it warmed up, the espresso becomes more noticeable but again not bad.

After the sampler, I tried to get a glass of Rodenbach Vintage 2007 but they were out.  Instead, I got a Southern Tier Pumking

There wasn't any head on it but you'll just have to trust me since I forgot to take a picture before drinking a bunch.  It smelled of pumpkin and a lot of spices.  Interesting smell, pretty much what a lot of people think of when they hear of a pumpkin beer.  The Pumking was very sweet with a lot of spices.  Kind of crazy how much pumpkin pie flavor they packed into this beer.  Even with all the spices and the high sweetness, it was still quite drinkable.

Went into the bottle shop before we left and man I love that place.  They have so many good beers.  Even if the prices can be a little high, there's just so much to find.  Every nook and cranny is just jammed with random beers.  I could come out of there with so many if I didn't care about money.  Ended up getting a Hoppin' Frog Boris the Crusher, an Oatmeal Imperial Stout, and a 2008 Rogue Imperial Porter.  The Rogue had an absolutely sweet bottle although it's no real surprise because if there is one thing Rogue does well it's make cool bottles.

Lew Bryson and some other beers

On Sunday, on top of the absolutely awesome bourbon beers I drank, I got to meet beer writer Lew Bryson.  I'll probably miss a few things he writes, but here's a small list.  His normal blog, his noplcb (no pennsylvania liquor control board) blog, and some really interesting articles on some random website in Massachusetts.  Seriously, you should check out that site.  I easily spent 2 hours reading those articles one day.  On top of that he also spends time writing for a whisky magazine named Malt Advocate. However, the thing he's most well known for (or at least the reason I really know him) is his awesome book on Pennsylvania breweries.  It's thorough, well written, and super interesting.  Jo and I have the 3rd edition of the book and just picked up the 4th edition on Sunday.  I'm reading through it now and there is just so much useful information about breweries, brew pubs, bars, and attractions in Pennsylvania.  Probably the best part is how for every brewery and brewpub, he lists places to visit in the area plus other bars to visit.  The former is super useful for those of us that have wives that insist everything can't be about beer and the latter is useful when visiting a brewery that won't have any food.  Go ahead and pick up a copy at amazon.  Trust me, it's well written and there are some really interesting facts in it.  On a more personal note, Lew was really receptive to chatting with me on Sunday and it's always awesome if people are willing to listen to me.  Sure, it helped that he was there to sell his book so he couldn't go anywhere, but still.  Seriously, though, nice guy and you all should read his blog and buy his book.  That way he'll make another edition in a few years for me to buy.

On top of that I tried two other beers Sunday at Hulmeville.  The best of the two was Rodenbach Vintage '08.

Hulmeville served it in their sweet chalice and it poured with very little head.  Similar look to other Flemish Red Ales with some darker notes.  This variety is actually a 2008 vintage that the Rodenbach brewery aged themselves.  Since I haven't had it in a while (if ever) I can't do a comparison, but man, this was one smooth beer.  It had a sweet and sour nose on it with a mild apple juice backing.  Not as strong as some Flanders Red Ales but this is 2 years old already so I'm guessing the apple juicy smell and flavor mellows out over time.  The taste followed the smell with more sweet and sour notes, each taking a turn.  Super easy drinking and really good.  The cool thing is that aging beers is a big thing in Europe so you may find stuff like this around.  I know Capone's has the 2007 on draft right now although it's probably close to finished.

I finished up the night with something completely different in the form of Rock Art Pumpkin Imperial Spruce Stout.

To be honest, while I have some notes about this one, I can't believe it's a stout.  Jo claims Hulmeville's description mentioned this, but it didn't feel like one to me.  If anyone has ever had this, let me know.  Not much of a smell to it and surprisingly very little pumpkin taste.  The overwhelming flavor to it was spruce.  Yes, spruce, just like the tree.  It wasn't bad, mostly surprising.  Throughout the whole glass, spruce was the major flavor and it actually was more enjoyable than expected.  However, if you are looking for a pumpkin beer this is not where to start.  Neither Jo nor I got any pumpkin flavor from it at all

That's the end of the 10/10/10 Beer Geek BBQ at Hulmeville Inn.  Meeting and chatting with Lew Bryson was way more fun than I expected and the bourbon aged beers were just incredible.  Jeff does a great job with that place and I look forward to the next special event.