beer

Pumpkin Beer Fest, 2017

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The Twelve Pumpkin Beers of 2017. 

This was another fun Pumpkin Beer Fest, for sure.  This year (like the first two years: 2016 and 2015), was a night of fun, friends, snacks, laughter, and of course, beer.  Everyone brought a couple (or several) bottles for everyone to try out.  Like last year, some of our friends couldn’t make it, and we missed them, but the show must go on.  Also, I was excited to have my college roommate with us this year!

We used our traditional scoring rubric.

5 points:  I would drink more of this RIGHT NOW, and never want to drink anything else.
4 points:  I would totally drink this again and again.
3 points:  I would drink this if someone offered it to me, but probably wouldn’t buy it.
2 points:  Would drink if the only choices were this and Bud.
1 point:  Nope. Not ever again.

There are always discussions about how to rate a beer when it’s good, but not too pumpkin-y.  We usually leave that up to the rater to decide, personally.  Without further ado…. here are our results.  Cheers!

1st Place:  Night Owl, Elysian Brewing Company 4.07.  Once again, Elysian seems to have the right formula for a delicious pumpkin beer.  This one had just the right blend of pumpkin spice.  It wasn’t syrupy or too spicy or bitter.  Smooth, perfectly spiced, and wonderful.

2nd Place (tie): Great Gourds of Fire, Hopworks Urban Brewing 3.93. This one had a bit of a kick at the end.  It is brewed with the typical pumpkin spices, but also with some actual spice.  I didn’t really like that about this one, but the pumpkin spice was lovely, and it was a good, solid beer.  It was also our first, so perhaps that’s why it scores so well.  We’ll never know.

2nd Place (tie): Evan’s friend Evyn’s homebrew 3.93. This was perfectly smooth and easy to drink.  It had some good pumpkinness in it and it was delicious.  Good pumpkin beer, Evyn.

3rd Place: Pumpkin Pedaler, Stormbreaker Brewing 3.86.  I don’t remember this one.  I didn’t even remember to put this on the blog originally.  I’ve edited the post to add it, but I can’t say anything about it.  But it scored pretty well, so it must be good!

4th Place: The Great Pumpkin, Elysian Brewing Company 3.79. This was 2015’s winner, and still one of my favorites.  This one tastes like pumpkin pie, but in a really good way.  I still love this one.

5th Place: Pumpkin Bier, pFriem 3.71.  This was last year’s winner and it was delicious this year, too.  I think I scored it lower because I didn’t get the pumpkin spice out of this one like I wanted to.  It was a delicious, easy to drink beer, but, to me, it just tasted like a delicious beer.  I wanted more pumpkin.  Looking back at last year, I wrote that it had a gingery finish.  I didn’t get that this year.

6th Place: Imperial Pumpkin Porter, Epic Brewing 3.79. I don’t really like porters, or really pumpkin in porters.  I think I like my pumpkin in lighter beers so the spices dance around, instead of just sitting there in the darkness.  This was my favorite of the dark pumpkin beers, though.

7th Place: Pumpkin Smash, Cascade 3.14. Now, I love me a good sour and I love me a good pumpkin beer.  But, for some reason, these just didn’t add up for me.  I mean, when I was drinking it, I understood that it was good.  I understood that it was delicious. I understood that it was clever and fun.  But, I just couldn’t picture myself drinking much more than the taster.  Maybe because I think of sours in the summer, at the pool, and I think of pumpkin beers in autumn, warm and cozy.  Call me crazy.

8th Place: Pumpkin Patch Ale, Rogue 3.07.  I actually really liked this one.  It was good.  Jesse thought it tasted too much like actual pumpkins – he compared it to pumpkins rotting in a field.  I didn’t really taste that, but you know, to each their own.

9th Place: Jamaican Me Pumpkin, 10Barrel 2.29.  Besides having a really dumb name and being ridiculously hard to open, this beer just wasn’t much good.  It was syrupy and too sweet.

10th Place: Big Black Jack, Oakshire 2.5. This porter just tasted burned.  I don’t know if it’s the chocolate porter part of it, but it didn’t sit well.

11th Place: Pinchy Jeek Barl, Anderson Valley 1.43.  This one was bad.  It is aged in bourbon barrels and it just tasted like gross bourbon.  Pumpkin beer or bourbon- pick one, ya know?

That’s all!  There you have it!  Our scientific, fool-proof list of which pumpkin beers to drink this year.

Also, I think it’s interesting that we were all in a more middle of the road mood this year.  We usually have a much larger spread of ratings.  It would be interesting to look back and see what was going on in the world when we did these ratings.  Last year, everything was all about the campaign and so divided and everyone had strong opinions on everything.  The first year (when we were all more innocent – in many ways), there were five beers that scored over 4 points – we were more hopeful and happy and generous.  This year we’re just jaded and not willing to commit to things being good OR bad.  Or something.  I’m obviously not a sociologist or a beer expert, so don’t take my word for any of this.

 

Pumpkin Beer Fest, 2016

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We had our Second Annual Pumpkin Beer Fest this past weekend.  Unfortunately, Mother Nature decided to have her own fest, and two of our best friends couldn’t make it over from Bend to join in the festivities.  We went on without them… it wasn’t the same but we did the best we could.

Just like last year we all brought a couple bottles of Pumpkin Beer to share and judge and rate.  Our rating scale was this:

5 points:  I would drink more of this RIGHT NOW, and never want to drink anything else.
4 points:  I would totally drink this again and again.
3 points:  I would drink this if someone offered it to me, but probably wouldn’t buy it.
2 points:  Would drink if the only choices were this and Bud.
1 point:  Nope. Not ever again.

Here are the results!

1. pFriem Pumpkin Bier  4.08333333.  This was a really good beer.  It had a really spicy finish, like fresh ginger.  It was tasty and easy to drink.  It had the perfect blend of pumpkin, spices, and beer.  Good stuff here.

2. Elysian The Great Pumpkin 4.0  This was our winner last year, and it was impressive again!  Elysian really knows how to make a good pumpkin beer.  This was smooth and perfectly pumpkiny.  Just exactly what I’d expect. 

3. Elysian Punkuccino 3.75 I didn’t expect to like this, because I don’t usually like coffee beers that much, and this was certainly strong on the coffee.  It was so smooth, and the coffee was well balanced with the sweetness of the pumpkin and the spiciness of the spices.

4. Elysian Night Owl 3.75 This one might be my personal favorite.  I love this one.  It is smooth and not bitter at all.  Lots of spices and 7 pounds of pumpkin per barrel – which is roughly 7 pounds of pumpkin – which sounds like a lot!

5. New Belgium Pumpkick 3.666 Just like last year, we started and finished with the same beer.  This score came from our first tasting of this one.   This is another one of my favorites.  I love the lemongrass and cranberry flavors that come through.  It really just tastes like autumn to me.

6. Uinta Funk’n Patch 3.5 I liked this one a lot.  It was more sour than the rest.  It is brewed with Brett which made it a little funky – in a good way.  It was unique and light and I liked it.  It makes me want to try more beers with Brett.

7. New Belgium Pumpkick 3.333 This was the second time we tried Pumpkick, at the end of the tasting when we were feeling a little different than we were in the beginning.  I like to repeat the first beer in the end to prove the efficacy of our palates and our rating system.  The scores were close enough that I would consider this to be a scientific and respectable system.

8. Oakshire Big Black Jack 2.666 I always feel so bad when we score a Eugene beer so poorly.  This is one of those that just doesn’t quite work for me.  The chocolate didn’t meld well with the pumpkin to me.  Sad.

9. Epic Imperial Pumpkin Porter 2.333 This one was disappointing because it just tasted like porter.  No pumpkin or spice flavors at all.

10. Laurelwood Pumpkin Ale 1.91666 I don’t remember anything about this one.  Maybe that’s good, judging by the score we gave it.

We also sampled our own pumpkin brown ale.  We didn’t want to score it because people would probably lie and say it was amazing, or lie and say it was horrible, but everyone really liked it.  It’s pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Pumpkin Beer Fest, 2015

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Pumpkin Beer Fest, 2015

andthenthey pumpkin beer 1This past weekend, we had six of our very best friends over for a Pumpkin Beer Festival.  We all provided a couple pumpkin beers, and we had a taste test.  Jesse bought a bunch of snacks, the kids were all put to bed, and we all got to tasting.

andthenthey pumpkin beer 2We had a 5 point rating system, but we could award half points if necessary (so really a 10 point rating system, but who’s counting).  As the night wore on, we discussed that it should have been a more specific scale, but it is what it is.  Next year, we’ll adopt the following scoring guide:

5 points:  I would drink more of this RIGHT NOW, and never want to drink anything else.
4 points:  I would totally drink this again and again.
3 points:  I would drink this if someone offered it to me, but probably wouldn’t buy it.
2 points:  Would drink if the only choices were this and Bud.
1 point:  Nope. Not ever again.

But, like I said, we didn’t use this scale, so each of us had our own individual scale, which, I suppose, would still provide accurate results, as long as each of us stuck to our own individual scale.

Here was our process:

  • Pour each person a taste of one beer.
  • Drink taste of beer.
  • Score beer.
  • Average scores.
  • Repeat.

As it turned out, we had two of the first beer we tried, so we went back to it in the end to ensure accuracy (given the fact that beer tasting tends to alter states of being, the more beer is tasted).  This will prove to you the efficacy of our process, given the following results.

andthenthey pumpkin beer 4

  1. The Great Pumpkin by Elysian Brewing. Score: 4.714. This was by far our favorite beer.  Elysian is doing something right with all their pumpkin beers.  They should be, since they make so many of them.  The pumpkin-ness was perfect, and it was easy to drink with smooth flavors and an excellent aftertaste.
  2. Pumpkick by New Belgium. Score: 4.357.  This was the first pumpkin beer that I ever liked.  As a wise beer expert once said, “It tastes like Thanksgiving in a bottle.”  Yes, folks, truer words were never spoken.  I love the hint of cranberry, the undertones of lemongrass.  This is a pumpkin beer for the people.
  3. Pumpkin Patch Ale by Rogue. Score: 4.285714.  The thing I liked most about this beer was the almost champagne-like fizziness.  I also like that it’s from Oregon, making it the first of our local beers to make the list.  Third place isn’t a bad finish for our beer loving state.
  4. Big Black Jack by Oakshire.  Score: 4.0714. The first Eugene beer on the list!  I’ve always loved Oakshire, so I’m happy to see it doing so well on our highly prestigious Pumpkin Beer Fest List.  Jesse describes this beer as “a walk down a dark, shadowy trail in the forest.”  Couldn’t have said it better myself!
  5. Punkin Ale by Dogfishhead. Score: 4.000.  This was one of my favorites.  It was easy to drink, and had a lovely pumpkin-ness.  Jesse didn’t like it at all, but I think it’s because he had just had a handful of sour-cream and onion corn puffs (not well known as being a palate cleanser).  I also really liked the label, but that didn’t factor into my scoring.
  6. America’s Original Pumpkin Ale by Buffalo Bill’s. Score: 3.857142.  This beer claims to be the original pumpkin beer (as seen in the name), and that might be true, but I would bet that some home-brewers tried it first.  This was certainly the most pumpkin-pie tasting beer of the bunch.  The pumpkin was very strong, but not unpleasant.
  7. Squash Buckler by Fort George Brewery. Score: 3.5714. This was our first beer, when our palates were clean, our blood was pure, our anticipation high.  It was good, but not amazing.  This beer didn’t taste like pumpkin at all, oddly.
  8. Squash Buckler by Fort George Brewery. Score: 3.07142515. This was our last beer, when our palates were buzzing, our blood was pumping, our anticipation satiated.  It was still good, but still not amazing.  But, our rating system was proved successful to within a half a point.
  9. Pumpkinhead by Shipyard. Score: 2.500. Neither Jesse, nor I, can remember anything specific about this beer, so that’s a pretty good description for why it’s scored to low.02
  10. Imperial Pumpkin Sleigh’r by Ninkasi Brewing. Score: 1.280. A disappointing finish for another Eugene beer.  This was the worst beer by a landslide.  Just look at that score.  More than a whole point lower than the number nine beer.  It didn’t taste good, and we were a bit offended by the feeling that it was a bit of a cop-out.  You can’t just add pumpkin to your winter seasonal and expect people to be amazed.

There you have it, folks.  What do you think of our rankings?  If you hold your own Pumpkin Beer Fest, let me know how your ranking shape up!