beauty and the brew

Ok, ok. I know I said I was only going to do one more of these, but I stumbled upon Warlock at Central City Tap House at lunch today, and I have a little extra time before work so why the hell not explore this beer a little bit.

Warlock is Southern Tier Brewing Co.'s Imperial Pumpkin Stout (8.6% abv).

Poured into a tulip in the dark bar, the beer is almost completely opaque but not for a touch of red/brown.

Aroma is a pleasant bouquet of roasted coffee, allspice and vanilla.

The taste is definitely like your bartender mixed your basic stout with Pumking. It's got the same pumpkin pie sweetness, spice and vanilla cream notes mixed with dark coffee, bitter chocolate and roasty malts. Touches of real pumpkin come in as this beer hits about room temperature.

It's actually a pretty dry finish on this guy, almost chalky. But in general, very thick and rich with a nice alcohol presence.

I really loved it. After Smashed Pumpkin, though, it's kind of hard to venture back into the world of very sweet pumpkin dessert beers, but I'll take it. Maybe not at lunch again, though that 8.6% started my day off on a good note!

This was my other pumpkin beer for my personal flight night 2013 at Shakespeares in Kalamazoo.

Totally different approach to pumpkin beer than Pumking for sure.

This is Shipyard's Smashed Pumpkin (9% abv).

This is a darker orange than Pumking, but still very vibrant. Same small head, but with slightly less retention, leaving only a thin ring around the edge.

The aroma is deceving! There are lots of seasonal spices in here with warm, bready notes. There is no actual pumpkin in the recipe, so I anticipated it to be more spiced and sweet, and would simply allude to pumpkin flavor.

However. This beer was quite different. It actually was very earthy, almost peat-like. It has a vegetal quality that I anticipated moreso from a beer with actual pumpkin. There was some spicy ginger in the finish, but otherwise I found that there wasn't much in terms of cinnamon, nutmeg, or cloves. Definitely not the pumpkin pie flavors you get from a lot of pumpkin beers, so I appreciated trying something so distinctly different. I'm also getting some herbal notes and a little bit of maple syrup (oh god, not Mrs. Butterworth, the real stuff. From Michigan). There was a touch of bitter hops at the finish.

The mouthfeel, again, was unexcepted. For somethig less sweet than other pumpkin beers, I anticipated a lighter mouthfeel. Instead, it was quite sticky but carbonated, like a cola. Definitely had some warmth from the high alcohol percentage.

This beer really leaves me baffled, considering it claims to have no actual pumpkin in it (same goes for their Pumpkinhead). I think it's a little bit less balanced than I expected, but I love the direction it's going in. Much more tailored to those looking for something with classic beer elements  mixed with fresh pumpkin flavor.

So again, back to discussing Shakespeare's Pub in Kalamazoo, I went out with some friends last week and there were just so many great and interesting beers that I needed to drink flights the whole night.

Southern Tier's Pumking (8.6% abv) had been elusive to me until this day. It's so good, it's not an easy brew to find considering its popularity means that bars and bottle shops run out pretty quickly around here. I had to grab it while I could.

Pumking has always been one of my favorites. It's definitely a sweet one.

Pours bright orange, certainly the most concentrated orange color I've seen this year, with a thin, but retaining head.

The aroma is pretty heavenly, loaded with nutmeg and cream, like a pumpkin spice coffee creamer. Some almond cookie, cloves, and vanilla. The whole nose is very bold.

This beer is as bold and agressive in flavor as it is in aroma. You've got a lot of pureed pumpkin right up front mixed with some solid malt character that leads into some heavy baking spice. The finish is unique in that it almost has this whipped cream or vanilla ice cream type creaminess and flavor, like pie a la mode. It's pure decadence.

Overall, this a great option for the holidays, especially because it's distributed nationally (considering I've done a few this month that are only available in Michigan or the midwest). If you enjoy a good pumpkin pie, this beer is certainly for you.

Have you ever been so excited about the future that you forget to live in the present? That is me to a T.

I am always planning for the future, my next move or big life goal, and so often I forget that today could be just as good if I tried to live for the moment instead of spending today planning for tomorrow.

That was where my entire weekend disappeared to, as I sat around planning for my exciting future life when I could have been having an exciting weekend full of new opportunities and adventures. But at the same time, when I put very little effort into doing something that day, I fall into comfortable habits while I'm busy plugging away at planning my entire life.

Drinking Ichabod is one of those habits.

And then I suddenly remember why Ichabod became such a habit for me to drink in the fall. It's damn good.

I have professed my love for Jaw Jacker. I've made a habit out of hoarding bottles and bottles of O'Fallon's Pumpkin Beer. I've indulged in Fermentation Without Representation.

But nothing compares...... nothing compares to Ichabod.

New Holland is my hometown brewery. Kalamazoo is (in my heart) Beer City USA, but there is a special place in my heart for New Holland Brewing Co. Mad Hatter was the first beer I ever tried (sorry dad, I think it was yours). We used to eat their pizza when I was a kid. I knew nothing about brewing, but since I've gotten older, I can identify the first time I saw a boil kettle and mash tun at New Holland.

Ichabod is just a really lovely pumpkin ale. Pouring in at an average 5.5% abv, this beer is a non-hazed deep but glistening orange with a sizable head for what I've been seeing from the majority of these pumpkin ales. About a finger's thick.

Aroma (you're probably getting sick of me saying this) was full of baking spice and crust-like, bready accents, giving it an overall pumpkin pie feel.

The taste is well rounded, starting with some spicy ginger paired with nutmeg and cinnamon, leading into caramel malts and some dark stone fruit and finishing with a touch of bitter and pumpkin earthiness.

For me, choosing Ichabod is a no-brainer for me. It tends to moderately please those who enjoy pumpkin beer and those who don't. For those that don't, they normally don't cry foul on overwhelming pumpkin flavor masking any of the "good beer" components. Lovers of pumpkin beer may complain that there isn't enough sweetness or robust pumpkin flavor, but will acknowledge that the beer is truly a beautiful symphony of how so many ingredients balance so perfectly in golden liquid form.

Don't let me just sit here talking about it, go out and look for it. New Holland distributes to Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina. Thanks, Wikipedia.

Yesterday I drove by the new Arcadia building. It wasn't on my way to anywhere in particular. I did it for the same reason you might drive past your crush's house in High School, even though it's totally out of the way.

Like the name of this next beer, I'm going to keep this review short and to the point.

This is a backlogged review from last night for O'Fallon Brewery's Pumpkin Beer (5.5% abv).

Everything about this beer screams pumpkin. To me, when I think pumpkin beer, I come to associate that very closely with O'Fallon's. The label makes it unmistakable, it has a giant jack-o-lantern on it. It's just called "Pumpkin Beer." It's written in huge white letters on a dark label.

The beer itself is the color of pumpkin pie. It's a cloudy ginger orange with very little head.

It smells exactly like pumpkin pie. You get everything in the nose, from pumpkin to spice, down to the smell of freshly baked crust.

The taste opens up a lot if you let this guy sit and warm for a few minutes. I know the aroma is tempting, but just wait a second. The pumpkin taste goes from diluted and overwhelmed by really basic malt flavors to a really prominent flavor component. General spiciness, most notably a solid backbone of cloves, ginger, and cinnamon. As I mentioned before, some beers get a bit of sweetness when you combine baking spice with sugary malts. This is one that does for me, but it's not too much. But again, from a beer that smells identical to pumpkin pie, it tastes exactly what you'd expect from that aroma.

Mouthfeel is actually one of the highlights for me. It has really solid carbonation that makes this more refreshing than some of the heavier pumpkin beers on the market right now. While it might be a little sweet to drink with all your dinnertime fall favorites, something saltier, like a pulled pork on a pretzel bun, would probably pair perfectly with this beer.

I feel like that is really what this beer has going for it. It's not experimental in any way, nor is it the most shining example of a perfect pumpkin beer. But I don't think anyone could try it and say "wow, that wasn't what I expected at all." It looks like it smells and it smells how it tastes. And that is 100% pumpkin beer.

This week was a doozy. I mean, seriously.

Between three GRE practice tests, free tickets to the Wood Aged Beer Festival at Brewery Vivant, and the always-glorious October Art Hop downtown Kalamazoo (basically a monthly walking gallery and studio tour), I've been keeping a few reviews on backlog so I can go back and correct grammar/finally upload photos, etc. There hasn't been much time to do this for the past few days. So let's start with Friday, shall we?

I sampled this particular beer with my friend Nick Benitez. On that note, I am going to take a brief second to plug The Michigan Beer Film, which he edited.

If you live in Michigan, and haven't had a chance to see it yet, JUMP. ON. IT. You will leave feeling overwhelmed with pride for the craft beer industry in our great state. It's an incredible high. Below is a list of upcoming showings thus far.

I just can't say this enough, go see this film.

Anyway, Nick and I shared Epic Brewing Co.'s Fermentation Without Representation (8% abv).

This beer is spectacular. I've had it before, I knew what to expect and I was still just... absolutely beside myself after every sip. Of course, I love a porter and I love pumpkin.

That's the main thing to remember about this guy. Pumpkin ales normally have a solid malty backbone to support mild squashy flavors and sometimes pumpkin pie-esque spices.

But using a porter base and accenting it with gorgeous layers of baking spice and hefty pumpkin notes is something you see significantly less often, and yet the melding of these two beer genres, pumpkin ale and porter, creates seriously unmatched complexity.

So today is day 2 for THE GREAT PUMPKIN (BEER) OFF.

I want to make this quick, actually. My cats are flying off the handle and I'm worried they're going to knock over this beer. I guess I have nothing to complain about, they've become best friends, like beer and pretzels, always better together. But because of their rambunctiousness, I need to get this show on the road. So let's pour it, down it, and discuss it, shall we?

I'm drinking UFO Pumpkin from Harpoon Brewery (5.9% abv). This is for you, Liz Vincensi, Miss Please Move to Boston. This brewery is in Boston, self proclaimed biggest craft brewery in New England.

No head. Just none. Color is certainly hazy, but a little too yellow to be a rich, spicy pumpkin.

Aroma is very spicy, full of cinnamon, nutmeg and definitely a kick of ginger at the end. There's kind of a weird, lemon cleaning solution aroma smack dab in the middle, which is kind of off-putting, honestly.

Definitely getting some pumpkin mixed with a caramel malt right of the bat, with a slight finish of ginger snap. The flavor as a whole is actually very mellow, much more mellow than the aroma alludes.  Like watered down pumpkin and ginger snap. It doesn't have a lingering aftertaste. As it warms, the aftertaste becomes slightly yammy, but still remains very mellow. Nothing really unique, either.

Mouthfeel is crisp with medium carbonation, and definitely as thin as grandma hair.

You're getting more of what you expect in a pumpkin beer than in the Hooligan from Monday, but this guy still isn't quite what I'm looking for, personally. I want big, fall flavors. I want robust spices and a thick, creamy head filled with pumpkin aroma. I almost want to jump right back into my beer fridge and review another beer, but I think it's better I wait. It's so thin and watery that I drank it...  not too fast, per say, but fast enough?

So now it's time for pumpkin ice cream, GOOD NIGHT!

I'd love to just make this entire post a love letter to Michigan in the fall.

There's not a single cloud in the sky. Not one. You haven't lived until you've driven down tree lined streets of historic Michigan houses, bright and pristine baby blue as the perfect neutral to branches laden with leaves from every firey color imaginable. It can transform a drive home from work into a 7 minute slice of Pure Michigan heaven. I can leave work fuming and return to my home going on and on about beauty and nature and love like I smoked something.

The other thing I love about Michigan is that our "fall harvest" is something that is completely unfathomable to people who haven't seen it. Just look the next time you buy your fruits and veggies this season, look for that "Made in Michigan" and feel proud about what you're eating.

Like any good Michigander, when on the precipice of October, you must faithfully fill your grocery cart with all things pumpkin. I can't wait to wake up tomorrow to my pumpkin coffee creamer and pumpkin granola, enjoy some pumpkin ice cream this evening, and stock up on canned pumpkin to make some pumpkin chili in the crockpot.

But don't let me get carried away.

This is a beer blog, after all.

What I'm really trying to lead up to with all of this is that this month, I am exclusively featuring pumpkin beers.

And I've got quite the line up planned, from in and outside of Michigan.

But for today, I wanted to start with Michigan

So we're looking at North Peak Brewing Company's Hooligan (5.5%), which is a self described hoppy pumpkin ale.

Pours a pale orange/yellow, like squash, with very little head. Also very little haze.

Hoppy aroma, very little pumpkin coming through, but there is a touch of it. Hops come through with a mix of grapefruit and floral notes, with a touch of bitter. There's some crustiness to it, making it taste more like a crunchy pumpkin cookie than that pie flavor you get with a lot of pumpkin beers, likely because that creamy pumpkin squashiness doesn't come through. Little spicy, both in a baking spice and warming kind of way, on the end. It's mostly those slight hints of spice that make this resemble a pumpkin ale.

Mouthfeel is very, very drying.

The hoppiness drinks like an APA, for sure. I actually am enjoying this beer, one of two that I've enjoyed so far from my sampling of North Peak brews.

All I can say on an end note is not to expect that you're probably expecting when you see "pumpkin" on a label. There's not a lot of sweetness. There's not a lot of baking spice. It's not a very thick beer, nor is it very carbonated. But it sure does taste good.... whatever it is.




Tune in soon for the next review from THE GREAT PUMPKIN (BEER) OFF