I’ve been trying to get friends together to do a pumpkin beer tasting for a couple of years now. I have the beer, they could just bring some snacks…why is it so difficult?? Who knows! But what I do know is I’ve been looking at these beers for quite some time now and I am not waiting any longer to drink them! Besides, the winter/Christmas beers are out now. And that’s a whole ‘nother post

Now, I will say this about my tasting. I cannot describe beers with the malty, hoppy, yeasty, ‘beer terms’ same as I do with wine, liquor, and cocktails. With beer, I like it…I don’t like it. Makes perfect sense to me! These will just be my notes for next year so I’ll remember what I liked and what not to waste my money (and time chasing it down) on again.

The lineup:

• Saranac Pumpkin Ale
• Southern Tier Pumking
• Heavy Seas Great Pumpkin
• Heavy Seas Great’er Pumpkin
• Dogfish Head Punkin Ale
• Uinta Brewing Oak Jacked Imperial Pumpkin
• RJ Rockers Gruntled Pumpkin Ale
• Flying Dog The Fear
• Shocktop Pumpkin Wheat

Now I like my wine aged in oak, so I get a few beers that were aged or fermented in oak barrels. The Great’er Pumpkin, Oak Jacked and The Fear were just that. Great’er Pumpkin used old bourbon barrels which added a nice caramel-y molasses kind of feel to it. Great Pumpkin, Pumking and Punkin Ale tasted like pumpkin pie, I really got the flavors of the nutmeg, cinnamon, and other baking spices. Gruntled Pumkin tasted like beer, but spices were added at the end. I won’t need to get that one again. Saranac, I could taste the pumpkin flavor and the beer flavor. This was better when I drank it with something. And I didn’t even match it up…figured it’s beer and beer goes with everything. I would try it again though.

My two faves, Pumking and Great’er Pumpkin held up and I tasted why I enjoyed them in the first place. New beers (to me that is) that I’ll pick up next year are The Fear, Punkin Ale and Oak Jacked Pumpkin Ale. This is a good thing though, because there is no way I’m hunting down and buying that whole list again next year!

Since I am loving all things pumpkin right now, today definitely calls for a cocktail with a l’il pumpkin in it. Let’s hope you can find the pumpkin liqueur in a shop near you. And with Thanksgiving being next week, how about I throw in an extra recipe…just cuz I’m that kind of girl :-)

Apple Cobbler

• 2 oz Fulton’s Harvest Pumpkin Pie Cream Liqueur
• 3/4 oz blended scotch whiskey
• 1/4 oz caramel apple liqueur
• 4 oz apple cider

Combine the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with crushed ice and shake well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass

Recipe courtesy of Mark V. at http://cocktails365.net/

Absolut 100 Pumpkin Martini

• 3 oz Absolut 100 Vodka
  
• .5 oz Hiram Walker Pumpkin Spice Liqueur
• splash Simple syrup (one part sugar, one part water)

Add all the ingredients to a shaker and fill with ice. Shake, and strain into a Martini glass. Garnish with a cinnamon stick.