Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale

Greetings! With the mounting variety of pumpkin beers at the market, the noble PumDuke and PumKing have requested the assistance of I, the PumDuchess, to write reviews.  Though my years with the fine ales made from this mercurial gourd are not as great in number, one cannot live in the ducal household without gaining knowledge of these tasty brews. They have bestowed the honor and responsibility of writing on Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale. What follows is the humble opinion of this Duchess.

Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin can be purchased at the local purveyor for $7.95 (plus taxes and deposits). At 5.7% ABV, the beer label describes itself as “a pumpkin Ale crafted with autumn’s bounty of vine-ripened pumpkin and flavors of cloves, all spice, and nutmeg, then brewed with a touch of wheat for a smooth lightly spiced finish.” As I poured the beer into the splendid pumpkin tasting chalice, I noted its good rusty orange color, but that was where my good impression ended. Upon first sip, there was not a strong pumpkin flavor (which is favored by the PumCourt in their pumpkin brews). The Harvest Pumpkin Ale had a malty but bitter spice to it rather than the zip expected from the autumn zest portrayed on the label. The sweetness seemed to come from a syrupy caramel tone rather than pumpkin essence. I also disagree with the label that the wheat used in the brewing process makes for a smooth finish. The beer finished bitter, and this did not wane throughout drinking the entire bottle. The beer left my desire for Pumpkin unsatisfied. 

Overall, I would give Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale a C-. It is a disappointing a pumpkin beer that has been on the market since 1995 (according to the Blue Moon website)—though under several names—has not been able to contend with the craftsmanship of Saranac , potential rookie of the year Long Trail Pumpkin Ale, or some of the other favorite pumpkin beers out there. If you would like, as Blue Moon Pumpkin Harvest Ale claims on the bottle, “the perfect complement to fall’s crisp, clear days,” I would recommend you spend your $8 on a different pumpkin brew or good harvest ale rather than this weak response to a promise of vine-ripened pumpkin.

Long Trail Pumpkin Ale

I'll admit it: I've never been a big fan of the Long Trail Brewery, and I've visited the place. The facility, located in beautiful central Vermont, is attractive enough-- requiring a windy drive through mountainous country roads and a constellation of homespun Rockwellian small towns-- which is good because the product would not have been worth the trip otherwise. Like the meal served to me in the Long Trail Brewery Pub, a bland porridge of a cheddar ale soup and undercooked chicken wings, all the beers I've ever sampled from this company have been underwhelming. Perhaps that's because they try to do too much: they regularly pump out 18 different types of beer, from such constants as their Blackberry Wheat (my favorite of theirs, because it's decent rather than merely inoffensive), seasonals like the Pollenator (as portended by the name, it's like drinking weak honeysuckle water), and premium bombers like their Imperial Porter and Coffee Stout (meh). What I'm getting at here is my suspicion that, like so many others (Rochester's Custom Brewcrafters comes to mind), in their efforts to saturate the microbrew market with variety, Long Trail has sacrificed attempting to brew a few good beers in favor of pumping out a surfeit of mediocre ones. 

This was the baggage I brought with me when I saw a six pack of Long Trail Pumpkin Ale on the shelf at Wegman's last week. Here we go again, thought I, snarkily, as I nonetheless put the beer in my cart, preparing to absorb the $7.99 in the name of science and the name of this blog.

I could not have been more surprised. This is an excellent little Pumpkin beer, an unpretentious (as suggested by the blatant Papa-Bear-esque ripoff adorning the label-- think Berenstain not Bill O'Reilly), unassuming, pleasant drink. Kudos to you, Long Trail, you've given my assumptions a good shake up. Don't get me wrong, this beer isn't going to win any top-ten competitions; Saranac Pumpkin is also back in town (review forthcoming) and has picked it's game up to an even higher level than last year's standard of excellence. But, and this is important, the 2012 model is Long Trail's first attempt at pumpkin beer after years of going nowhere with an Octoberfest Fall seasonal. Brewing pumpkin beer is difficult for veteran brewers-- see the inglorious descent of Southern Tier's Pumpking as exhibit A on that score-- let alone newbies. Long Trail Pumpkin is doubly impressive for being good, if not exactly great, on its inaugural run.

A few words on the beer itself. Balance is the name of its game-- not too sweet, not overly spiced, but lightly flavored to enhance the natural taste of pumpkin. The coloring of the beer is on the light side, faintly orange shading toward dark yellow, with a pleasant aroma on the pour. After some initial bitterness upon the first taste, Long Trail Pumpkin opens up with hints of sweetness; not overpowering, not sugary, but semi-sweet-- definitely not for strict pumpkin pie beer seekers, nor for those who exclusively favor a heavy hand with nutmeg and spice. The more one drinks, at least at first, the more one appreciates the Goldilocks virtue of the beer. Just right, with a little something to please everyone, a nod to the sweet and spice camps. That's what, in our opinion, great pumpkin beers do. Saranac and Blue Point, last year's favorites, both thrived by hitting an absolutely perfect balance of sweetness and spice, pumpkin pie filling and clove, vanilla and nutmeg.

Long Trail doesn't quite work on all these levels.  It leaves something to be desired, falls short of the mastery of Saranac and Blue Point; where those beers explode with flavor throughout, tantalizing the senses and leaving one wanting more after the last drop, one Long Trail Pumpkin Ale is enough for this drinker. The beer is a little heavy and flattens out noticeably during consumption, almost as if it flowers too quickly after the first sip, peaks during the second, third, and fourth, and then begins its precipitous decline at the half-way point of the pint. By the end, it's dropped even below pedestrian beer. That's a shame, because sips 2-4 were almost a trip to the Great Pumpkin's moonlit patch on gossamer wings.

Welcome to the world of pumpkin beer, Long Trail. Very nice debut, solid if not spectacular, in a field where solid isn't easy. Grade: B+

Our Royal Return

"The Pumpkin is a mercurial gourd."

-- Words spoken between the PumKing and PumDuke last week when orchestrating the return of the blog.

Don't let the calender fool you, it's that time of the year again. That special period between mid-August and Mid-October when a growing proportion of the nation's breweries pump out vats of our favorite, delicious, frothy golden-orange-brown-amber liquid. Yes, the pumpkin beer season has returned to Rochester, New York. And with it, the Royal Pumpkin Review announces its glorious return for the 2012 season.

As more and more pumpkin brands flood the market, we'll be analyzing some new brews. Too, precisely because that glorious gourd is so mercurial, the key to perfectly tapping its rich flavors so elusive, we'll be revisiting old friends and foes alike. The precariousness of brewing a good pumpkin beer-- varying annually, batch-to-batch, based on the quality of pumpkin harvests, level of spicing and sweetening, and divergent operational philosophies (to attempt pumpkin pie beer or pumpkin beer, that is the question)-- necessitates forgetting nearly everything we said about the 2011 lineup.

A welcome sight at the end of summer.

Will Saranac and Blue Point maintain their dominance? Will Wolaver's and Blue Moon continue to disappoint? Stay tuned and find out.  

Y-all come back now, ya-hear?

It looks like time got away from us for the 2011 year of the pumpkin, that, and the fact that we moonlight as aspiring scholars. Sadly, the pumpkin beer season is short-- running from mid-August through late October-- and we are almost out of stock. So many beers left untasted, so many brands that we've yet to review. We'll be back in 2012, ready and raring to try new beers, revisit old friends, and pay homage to that glorious old gal, the pumpkin beer.

In shutting it down for now, the Pumpcourt wishes you a pleasant off-season full of delicious winter, spring, and summer seasonal brews.

Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale

Available in regular six packs, Weyerbacher Pumpkin tastes like the kind of beer one expects to get in a bomber or growler. (It's priced that way too-- be ready to pay ten bucks or more for a sixer). Indeed, at 8.0% ABV, a pint of this delicious brew is all you really need to get a pleasant buzz on; drinking a full six pack, or even splitting it with the estimable Pumpking, will get you drunk in a hurry. (Which explains, in part, why there is only review going up today. Like the Dwarves of Moria, we dug too deeply and too greedily into the chilled beerstock last night). The bold taste, too, suggests something that traditionally comes in a singular, large serving size. It's got that special, "there can be only one" je ne sais quoi. Like the Pumpking bomber, more than one of these is simply glutinous. We recommend starting a beery night with Weyerbacher, and then moving on to more manageable brews, like Saranac or Blue Point. 

But this is definitely a beer worth trying. The craft brewery, out of Easton, PA, boasts that their product is "the mother of all pumpkin ales... heartier, spicier, and more 'caramelly' and 'pumpkiny' than its faint brethren." They got the first part right, in any case. Upon the pour, sift&sniff, and first taste, one is treated to an indulgent (if slightly overwhelming) burst of caramel as well as strong hints of cinnamon, like a pumpkin infused Twix Bar. To be sure, then, Weyerbacher upon first blush is among the sweetest pumpkin beers available, comparable to UFO in its prime (see post below). What makes the brew interesting is that it mellows after the first few sips-- or perhaps the taste buds acclimatize-- becoming somehow robust instead of deliriously saccharine. It grows more balanced as you drink it down. Does Weyerbacker live up to its claims of achieving optimal pumpkinyness, you might justifiably ask? That depends on your definition of pumpkiny. If you want your pumpkin flavor to resemble reduced-sugar pie filling, then yes sir, that's your baby; if you are looking something with a little more bite (and why wouldn't you when purchasing a self-proclaimed imperial ale?) you might be disappointed. We were assuredly not disappointing, however. I wish I could tell you more about it, but as I say, drinking more than one of them may cause impaired judgment and memory lapses, among other things. Oops.

From the haze of last night, though, this at least is a true statement: Weyerbacher Pumpkin is a gem of a beer. Grade: A-.

UFO Pumpkin

I'm searching for a stronger word to describe UFO pumpkin, but so far the best I've come up with is "uneven." But to an epic degree. UFO was the first pumpkin beer to arrive on the scene in Upstate New York, surfacing in area bars and the grocery store in late August, and going for a reasonable $7.99 a six pack. If we had been a little less lazy and reviewed UFO right away, it would have received a glowing report. Our first encounter with UFO was magical; we raised our glasses joyfully to toast in the fall, and found, to our great pleasure, a very sweet inauguration. The beer was so rich and creamy, like drinking pumpkin pie, that we took to calling it a dessert beer.  It could have been served Starbucks-style, with a frothy whipcream head and delicious, delicious sprinkles. Although the beer had already been amply spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg, we enjoyed its flavor so much that we proposed drinking it with a box of graham crackers (a proposal ultimately shot down when it was determined that no city bar currently stocks cookies of any kind) and treating the brew like pie filling. Improving matters further, the Pumpking chatted up the regional UFO representative at the bar and was rewarded with free beer. Looking back now, we should have known trouble was on the horizon. Things this good don't last.

Flash forward to present. Something, somewhere went terribly, terribly wrong. That, or something's rotten in Rochester. In the weeks since UFO first won our hearts, they have broken them many times over. Now what I am about to disclose is shocking, so before you start to question me, gentle reader, know this: we have bought six packs at different times and from different stores to try to cast a wide net and produce a fair sample size. To no avail. Over the last month, the once mighty UFO has gone sour. LITERALLY. The beer tastes skunky and unpleasant, still pumpkiny but quite spoiled, like the brewery either used fresh ingredients that don't age well or they got a bad batch of canned pumpkin after their initially-successful launch (and admittedly this is UFO's first stab at pumpkin beer; the rep told us while dispensing freebies and pleasantries).  While drinking their recent stuff I imagined that last, saddest pumpkin left in the patch-- lumpy, moldy, bruised, soggy, unlovable except to a Charlie Brown. Then I imagined that UFO guy grabbing it up, throwing it in the hopper, and rubbing his hands together gleefully  (and possibly twirling a newly-grown mustache) at his fiendish plot: the old bait-and-switch. Give 'um the good stuff, get 'um hooked, and then dole out a line of crappy replacement product.

UFO has shrunk in our estimation from nearly first to nearly the worst. Original UFO: A+/ Current iteration: D-. Yikes.

Heavy Seas-- The Great Pumpkin

Well, so much for improved diligence.

So, the Great Pumpkin, eh? Let's be clear, there are definitely a few things that are great about this beer: its name (nice homage to a Halloween classic), its size (you can only get them in 22oz bombers), and its coloring (when held against soft light after being poured in a glass, er, goblet, the beer projects multicolored layers of oranges and browns-- kind of like a tequila sunrise but with autumn colors). Another great thing about this beer is the story of how the Pumpking and I acquired it. While shopping at Beers of the World, a massive store which delivers everything promised in the name, we made a beeline for their special "seasonal beers" shelf to see what was new in pumpkindom. A lot, apparently. However, they only had one Heavy Seas bomber left in stock. I made to grab for it just as another fellow, less regal in countenance and dress, did the same. I beat him by seconds, and, after an awkward moment of staring at each other, he deferred to me, admitting that I won the beer "fair and square."

Good thing, because this is hardly a beer worth fighting over. Priced at about ten bucks a bomber, we were expecting great things from the Great Pumpkin, a beer described as "imperial" on a label which is otherwise sadly marred by superfluous pirate cliches. An example, you say? How about "Its Extraaaaaaaardninary," as the bearded sea-rat on the front of the bottle claims. If only.  The beer tastes, to an extraaaaardinary degree, like last year's disappointing Pumpking ale. That is, it starts off incredibly sweet upon initial taste, but the longer one allows it to linger over the palate, the more bitter it becomes. A study in contrasts is an interesting thing, naturally, but it lent this beer a certain mercurial flavor. It couldn't decide whether it wanted to please us with buttery, creamy pumpkin pie sweetness and light, or blast us with the imperial stout lurking beneath the surface. Ultimately, as we split the brew, it decided to try for both and achieved neither. The more our taste buds grew accustomed to Great Pumpkin, the more nondescript it became. By the half-way point of consumption, the beer became bland-- drinkable but not desirable. Quite a head-scratcher, really. Heavy Seas is a tricky little blighter to figure out, and in the end the effort is hardly justified.

In all, a strange creature of a beer. It's worth trying once if you're looking to make the rounds, but if you are only in the market for solid pumpkin beer pass this one by. B-/C+.