Ah, fall in new york. It's like a cover girl commercial: easy, breezy, beautiful. And with it comes the delicious influx of pumpkin flavored goods. Pumpkin is great as a seasonal flavor because it can go sweet or it can go spicy. It can be incorporated into soups, gelatos, muffins, breads, cookies, pies, cocktails and my most favorite of all, beer!
I've done two tastings so far of pumpkin ale and they were markedly different. I will finish off next week with the last tasting, Smuttynose's Pumpkin ale.
I started with a trip to the Brooklyn Brewery which opens it doors every Friday night and transforms the small warehouse into a frat-like party barn. $20 bucks gets you six tokens which you can trade at the bar for 6 party cups (not pints) of seasonal brews. All of the beer is pretty good but my two favorites are the Brooklyn Brown (with a malty, coca-cola flavor) and the pumpkin ale. The pumpkin is perfect; all the notes of nutmeg and spice but still a very light, crisp beer.
The next beer I had was the Coors seasonal Harvestmoon Pumpkin Ale. Now, I have a very extreme relationship with Coors. I hate Blue Moon. Detest. But I love their summer seasonal, Honeymoon. Love! So I thought I'd give this more budget friendly beer a try ($10-12 a six pack, depending on your location). It was disappointing. The pumpkin flavor was underwhelming, although if it had been marketed as a brown beer it would have been pretty decent. I thought it even tasted a little like Dogfish Head's Raison D'etre, which is in my top five of brown, malty, caramel beers.
One left to go- Smuttynose! I'll update next week.
I love the way your media blog is turning into a foodie blog! that's my grrl.
ReplyDeleteThat's what we do hear in new york. eat. a lot. :)
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