the pumpkin post

what's up?  i'm a pumpkin.  i'm delicious.

Hidey hoooooooooo!!!!

It's been a while...

weeks...

months...

...my wife and I moved to a new house!

say hi to Milo!

...and we adopted a wonderful puppy!

And things at the warehouse are busy busy busy!  We've had some great tastings these past couple of months - most recently Lagunitas and Stone Brewing.  Coming soon - Sixpoint, rolling out their forthcoming Autumnation, a wet-hopped pumpkin/harvest beer in their fantastic 16oz cans, and Sierra Nevada!

Needless to say, I'm happy to finally sit down and have a chance to pick up where we left off:)

I don't know about you, but my favorite season is fall.  I love a crisp fall morning where the air is damp and the lawn is covered in orange leaves.  And I love...pumpkin beers!

Pumpkin beer - those who hate them, well, I never begrudge anyone's preference...but...what is fall without a pumpkin beer?  What's a better way to finish a fall evening than a hearty pumpkin ale?  So, to those who hate pumpkin beers, SORRY, and hopefully my future wet-hopped beer post will appeal!

First, the elephant in the room.  As many of you noticed, our shelves began filling up with pumpkin beers in the late summer going back to early August and, if memory serves me correctly, late July.  The FAQ - why?  Why are breweries releasing pumpkin beers when we haven't even finished with summer releases? 

why you wanna hate on me yo?

It's not a simple answer.  Just like brewing is not as simple as, "Hey, wanna make a pumpkin beer?"  Much has to do with you, the customer.  In a perfect world, a brewery would release a seasonal beer at the beginning of a season.  And customers would buy that beer down to the last bottle.  In reality, there is a very short selling window for pumpkin beers, and with so many breweries making pumpkin beers, the best way to ensure that their year's supply is sold through is to release it early.  Think about it - better to release it early and sell out before the end of the season than release it at the beginning of the season and have some leftover come time for winter releases, right?  Another question is - where do the breweries get their pumpkin if they're releasing in August?  Some of you may have seen a recent Twitter post by Sixpoint calling out early release pumpkin beers and questioning the sourcing of the pumpkin.  While I admire Sixpoint's dedication to freshness, breweries use everything from flash frozen pumpkins to squash (grown year round) to canned pumpkin, all of which IMHO are more than acceptable.  I greatly admire any brewery that can release a beer using that year's pumpkin harvest as it would be quite an undertaking.

So, in short, pumpkin beer will continue to be released early every year as more breweries vie for space in the consumer's fridge.  If you love a pumpkin beer and want to have it through the pumpkin season, order a case, lest it be gone the next time you stop into the warehouse:)

Here's a round up of some of the great pumpkin beers we have in the store -

Shipyard Pumpkinhead - without a doubt, the most popular of all the pumpkin beers, and newly canned!  Brewed since 2002, Pumpkinhead uses wheat malt and spices to make a very easy drinking beer.

Harpoon UFO Pumpkin - the most recent addition to the Harpoon's unfiltered series, this is a little sweet, a little earthy, and very smooth.

Wolaver's Pumpkin - another easy drinking pumpkin beer, mildly spiced with a beautiful hazy orange color from our friends at Otter Creek.  I believe they use local VT pumpkins but don't quote me on that.

Rock Art Pumpkin Imperial Spruce Stout - a pumpkin beer where the meat of the pumpkin is used for texture.  This is a bold and chewy stout where the predominant flavor is the piney herbal taste of local spruce.  A delicious example of a pumpkin beer that doesn't aim for pumpkin pie spice.

Dogfish Punkin - continues to be my go-to pumpkin beer.  Thick and rich with a gorgeous mixture of brown sugar and molasses and spice.  I've had many pumpkin beers but I'll always come back to Punkin.

Southern Tier Pumking - no pumpkin conversation is complete without Pumking.  A boozy punch of vanilla, caramel, and a subtle hop note at the end.  The benchmark of outrageous pumpkin beers.

Long Trail Pumpkin/Imperial Pumpkin - I'll confess to not yet trying LT's Pumpkin but I've thoroughly enjoyed their Imperial Pumpkin, the latest in the always excellent Brewmaster's Series.  Like Rock Art, this is more textural but with a bit more pumpkin spice, and deceptively drinkable despite an 8% abv.

Smuttynose Pumpkin - what separates Smutty's pumpkin is a more aggressive hopping which makes this excellent release punchier than the rest.

Sam Adams Fat Jack - released for the first time last year and now folded into the "Small Batch" 22oz series, Fat Jack is part Punkin, part Pumking.  Boozy and rich.

Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela (currently sold out but more coming soon) - kind of necessary to have a pumpkin beer when your brewery is called Jolly Pumpkin!  Subtle pumpkin, cacao, and spices mix with a slight tinge of sourness from JPAA's wild yeast and secondary oak fermentation.




These are only a few of the pumpkin beers that we currently carry.   Hopefully I'm not missing too many others.  Wachusett Imperial Pumpkin, Southhampton Pumpkin, Woodchuck Pumpkin Cider, Blue Point...probably a few I'm blanking on!

So there you have it.  Go out and try a pumpkin beer while you can and hopefully you'll find one you love!

Warmest,
e