Saranac Pumpkin Ale

Halloween seems all too perfect a time to have the second to last beer in the Great Pumpkin-Off of 2011. Especially given the label for this beer is a Jack O'Lantern. Saranac Pumpkin Ale is one of their seasonal brews that's available in their 12 Beers a Falling or in its own 6 or 12 pack. The brewery is located in Utica, NY and as of right now I'm supposed to go visit it very soon. 

Happy Halloween!

 This particular beer was picked out by a friend for his birthday and the first sampling I did was with him straight from the bottle. I was a little put off by it then so I decided to do a proper sampling of it a few days later, thinking that the bottle somehow changed the way the beer tasted.

The beer poured a deep reddish gold color. There was very little head on the pour and what there was seemed to dissipate very quickly. The nose was very spice heavy with clove being the most notable one of the bunch. The flavor wasn't much different. The clove was downright overpowering. It was difficult to discern a lot of the other spices that were there because of the clove. I also found it difficult to discern the pumpkin at all. The spices lingered on the palate after the beer was finished, tasting almost like burnt spices after awhile.

It depends on personal tastes on this one I suppose and I like cloves as much as the next person, but I strongly feel you should be able to taste the pumpkin in a pumpkin ale. The beer was fairly disappointing but not overall terrible. It certainly left a warmth from all the spices and at $8 a six-pack it is certainly reasonably priced.

Brooklyn Brewery Monster Ale

Now when I started this blog, I was determined to try as many different types of beers as possible. It wasn't going to matter to me how scary or intimidating the name was, I was going to try it. Lately, I know I've been slipping a bit on this but a beer I found on my last trip to the store seems to have upped the ante a bit. 

 Monster Ale is a barleywine style ale from the wonderful Brooklyn Brewery. It's a middle of the road barleywine as far as ABV goes coming in at a sound 10.1%. The strongest beer I'd had up to this point was Unibroue's La Fin du Monde at 9.0% ABV but this "monster" from Brooklyn was a horse of a different color.

The pour was a little disconcerting as no real head appeared but I think that may have been from a lack of a goblet to pour it into as well. The color was a dark gold and what head there was, was white. The nose was a  lot of whiskey notes but there was some fruit evident as well. The taste was strong. There was no mistaking that this beer was strong. It was still very pleasant, exactly like drinking a wine which, as its name suggests, makes it fairly perfectly named. The finish left you wanting more. I was disappointed when my glass was empty and as I only bought one bottle, I had no more Monster Ale. It was about $2 for the bottle but more than worth it. I would highly recommend this beer to people who like a challenge.

Samuel Adams Black Lager

As mentioned in my first Sam Adams post about their Pumpkin Ale, I bought the entire Harvest Collection they put out this year in the 12 pack. I've always enjoyed Sam Adams as I feel their descriptions of their beers on the tops of their labels are spot on and they always put out a quality beer. I have not yet met a Sam Adams beer I do not like and hope to continue on this very happy tradition.

Tonight's selection was the Black Lager from the collection. My uncle and I had been discussing it only a few days before and he told me how wonderful it was so I was, once again, excited to try another new beer. As a rule, I don't read the description of the beer until after I try it, especially with Sam Adams since theirs are right on the bottle.

The beer poured dark, nearly black in color with a few ruby highlights when it was held up to the light. The head was thick and cream colored. The nose of the beer was rich. There were a number of malt notes with highlights of chocolate and just a hint of coffee. The flavor did not disappoint. It was chocolate with a mild sweetness to it. The finish was dry with some of the coffee flavor hanging on. Overall, it was a very good beer, perfect for a cool, fall evening which is what Sam Adams surely intended when they put it in their Harvest Pack.

Hell or High Watermelon

So it turns out, when you start writing about beer, your friends start thinking of you when they try new and/or weird beers. That's how I came across this beer here. I was at a friend's house one evening and she remembered she had something for me. As she ran to get it I remember her saying, "It's really awful but we thought you should try it." That's something to really strive for, in my opinion at least.

It was 21st Amendment Brewery's Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Ale. As we've seen, I do enjoy trying flavored beers. It intrigues me to see how a brewery gets certain flavors into their beers and how well they actually succeed. Watermelon is a particularly tricky fruit which you'd know if you'd had anything artificially flavored like watermelon. Sometimes, it's fantastic...others not so much.

Unfortunately, this beer fell firmly in the latter category. The beer was a straw color that was slightly cloudy which disappointed me a bit as I was hoping there'd be at least a slight pink hue to the beer given the color of the fruit. The nose then gave away what I was in for. It had a sickly, sweet watermelon smell to it that I could barely get past. The flavor was similar to someone dropping a watermelon Jolly Rancher in a beer for only a few moments so that the flavor was just enough to ruin the beer. It was very watery and not very appealing at all. Overall, it was a grand disappointment. As I got the beer as a gift, there was no cost for me.

Freemont's Summer Solstice

With the warm weather we've had here on the East Coast, I thought it would be appropriate to finally review the bottle I bought during my visit to the Fremont Brewery. The only beer that wasn't on tap when I was there was the Summer Solstice and given how impressed I was with all their other offerings I was more than happy to purchase the beer to give it a try when I got home. Transporting it cross-country was a bit tricky but it didn't seem any worse for the wear when I got to it.

The beer was described to me as a tangerine flower in a glass and I can't say I was disappointed in the least. The beer poured a light gold color with just a little bit of haze. The head was bright white and dissipated rather slowly over the course of the beer's consumption. The nose of the beer was very hoppy and I grew hesitant at that since I'm still not well acclimated to very hoppy beers. There was also a great deal of citrus in the nose as well, which promised to save me. Fortunately, it seemed to be just the right amount of hops for me as I was pleasantly surprised by the flavor. It was hoppy but the description of a tangerine flower in a glass was spot on. It was very refreshing after a long day at work. The finish was clean with just the tiniest bit of hop flavor lingering. My only wish was that I had another bottle but alas, it was not meant to be. It does encourage me to get back out to Seattle as soon as possible to see what else the Fremont has to offer though.

Fisherman's Pumpkin Stout

The latest in the Great Pumpkin Off is Cape Ann Brewing's Fisherman's Pumpkin Stout. This was the beer I was the most excited about as I had never seen a pumpkin stout before and the idea of a rich, malty stout with spicy pumpkin flavors was intriguing. So, hoping the best, I had saved it for the last of the ones I had originally bought.

The beer poured nearly black with a thin cream colored head. The nose had a lot of spice notes but was overall very malty. I couldn't smell much pumpkin at all. The flavor was very disappointing. It drank very similarly to most every other stout I've had with just a hint of cinnamon present. It was very malty but in this case I almost found that to be a detriment to the beer as I bought it looking for pumpkin. It finished with malts and lingered a bit in the mouth. While I enjoyed the beer as a stout, it was a let down as a contestant in the pumpkin category since it didn't really seem to taste like pumpkins much. I got the beer as a single bottle for about $2 which is more than reasonable considering how much a beer at a bar generally runs.