Style : Pumpkin Ale
ABV : 5.9%
Now that it's November 1st and Halloween is over, should we put away with the pumpkin beers and move on to Christmas beers? Hell no!!! As far as I'm concerned pumpkin beers don't stop until the day after Thanksgiving, when the Christmas tree lots open their doors and the trees are up for sale. That to me is when the Christmas season truly begins.
With this past weekend being the Halloween weekend I figured it would only be in good fashion to have a pumpkin beer, since I know longer go door to door and trick or treat. I do that at the age of 27 and my neighbors will have me arrested. So I decided to crack this baby open, which got here just in for Halloween.
Now I have been told that Jolly Pumpkin is primarily a sour/wild type beer producer, with the type of yeast they use in a majority of their batches, but I was hoping that the pumpkin flavor would prevail on this one. Well sadly it didn't. It was much like a sour beer, which I love, but I was hoping for much more of pumpkin/spice presence. The aroma and taste were dominated by the sour flavors and I was only able to get a little bit of pumpkin on the back end. But I can't say that I was too surprised though, as Mike from mikelovesbeer.com had told me a few days prior that he had recently tried this one was not impressed with the pumpkin balance, and he doesn't even like pumpkin beers. So I guess I was a little disappointed but I was glad that I got the chance to try it.
Grade C
Jolly Pumpkin doesn't just primarily brew wild/sour ales; it exclusively brews oak-aged, Belgian-style, wild/sour ales. Some of them of course have more sour character than others. One thing to remember with Jolly Pumpkin brews, also, is that they are all bottle conditioned (as you probably know, this means they add a little yeast to the bottles.) When the brews are bottled, they all taste the same. But, the flavor that might come out of the bottle when you open it is completely dependent on how each particualr bottle has been stored. Temperature, light, and most importantly age can alter the complexities of each bottle. It's as if each bottle is almost alive. If you ever happen to open up a bottle of Parcela that had been bottled relatively recently, you'll find a lot less sour notes in that beer.
ReplyDeleteOne might suggest that when reviewing beers (and this goes for all craft beer), the reviewer should taste a larger sampling of the product. Which is a win - win situation for all. The reviewer gets to drink more beer and the reader gets a broader perspective of each beer.
And I'm glad you got the chance to try the Parcela as well.
Thanks for the comment and the info on the Jolly Pumpkin brews. Some of that info I wasn't aware of.
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