Tag Archives: pumpkins

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Dogfish Head, Sahtea, Spiced Ale 9% abv

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Dogfish Head Sahtea

Time for some exotic Autumn Love. Autumn All Non-Gregorian Steeze.

This is not Sahtea, so now you know which bottle not to purchase. Deal with it.

Autumn week has been fun, after it’s over, you have to drink like a normal alcoholic. Enjoy this final respite free of maple leaf judgment.

Sahtea, Dogfish Head, 9% ABV, spiced ale/Sahti

A: This is murky orange with some yellowing at the edge, no head to speak of, middle body carbonation throughout with small bubbles. Oh wait, you say that’s not descriptive enough? How about you imagine William H. Macy in front of a warm hearth? No? Fine, some mild murkiness like the inevitable job application from an ex-con.

S: Lots of cinnamon, tea, juniper, with an overrriding smell of nutmeg. It’s like a swedish chef spilled a crazy splash into the kettle. It is bizarre but interesting, like John Stamos’s IMDB, you just cant look away.

This is how I felt after I actually tasted this spicetrap.

T: Go bite into a piece of pumpkin pie and chase it with a refined gin, now we are on the same level. This has a bizarre sweetness that tastes like holiday treats, pumpkin, yams, cinnamon, but then a strangely hollow sweetness to it that feels like a synthetic sweetner. It is not bad, but it is difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t had an autumnal festival all up in their dome piece.

M: The taste is surprisingly thin for all of the leaves falling and equinox shift that is taking place. Not a lot of coating just a wafting sweetness that lingers like a poltergeist, haunting your mouth with sweet aparitions. HAS YOUR MOUTH EVEN BEEN SLAMMED BY A PUMPKIN GHOST? Well now it has.

Curl Up to a Nice Movie With Your Pumpkin Ghost.

D: This is not a very drinkable beer. I didn’t find myself wishing for more of it, more than anything it was fun to try and explain the experience to someone. It felt a little bit like Samhain, in liquid form. I can see this beer having a place around a certain season, I just cant think which one, the pumpkin and candy notes make it difficult to place.

I paid $20 for this at a bar, and was all like-

Narrative: Papers, TPS reports, zoning regulations: WHO THOUGHT THAT BEING THE PUMPKIN KING WOULD BE SO MUCH WORK. You didn’t ask for this, being the dauphin of several regal seasonal bloodlines, but yet here you are, in your ostentacious orange house, your burnt yellow desk, sipping on eggnog wondering where it all went wrong. Well I guess Pumpkinonia could have used more regulation of its chief export, rubber, but who are you to interfere with the Pumpkinonian’s laize faire commercial structure? The seed tarrifs, the middle road tolls, cleaning up constant pumpkin guts from the country side was just far more than you bargained for. Then the sweet juniper potion starts to call your name, you are a flawed ruler, to be sure, but who can fault the Pumpkin King for being a raging alcoholic. After all, you smell like a warmed over holiday party 364 days out of the year, but on Flag Day you rest. DING, time to take the PUMPKIN PIE OUT OF THE OVE- BANG!

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The Bruery, 100% Bourbon Barrel Aged Autumn Maple, 13% abv

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Autumn Never Seemed so Good

This is Autumn for People Escaping Autumns Past.

Happy Halloween, enjoy this homage to coping with fall.

The Bruery 100% Bourbon Barrel Aged Autumn Maple, Brown Ale/Vegetable Beer 13% abv.

A: This beer has a creamy deep amber tone to it with some delicate lacing that is frothing and tiny. Just like the polluted Ohio river that you enjoyed so much as a child. The carbonation maintains throughout and generates some nice sticky lacing. It makes one abundantly thankful, ba dum tish.

S: This beer has to have been made by Willy Wonka, in summation, the schnozberries smell, well you know. This is pumpkin pie in a glass. I am not being glib, this is seriously like a shot of nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, coriander, pie crust, biscuity goodness in a glass. I realize this beer is made with yams, but it is intense and overpowering in a good way. At the back end a boozy bourbon note dominates and makes it feel like, the end of Thanksgiving, when people say what they feel. You know, that part of Thanksgiving. Oh Nana.

T: This has a nice frothy maltiness at the outset with pumpkin, yam, and honey tone to it. The oakiness sets in at the back end like a watchful chaperone and nods to the bourbon warmth that rounds things out to a nice warmth. There is a faint hit of vanilla but with all the spices going on, you are lucky to leave with your wallet and your pallet’s dignity.

M: This has a mid-range frothiness that isn’t overly expansive and generates a nice coating. The tastes are so complex that you are left bewildered by the onslaught too much to think about the details. It’s like the screenplay to Inception where there’s just lots of cerebral nonsense taking place and you don’t question the basics.

D: This is hot, sticky, boozy, spicy, and strange: but I want more of it. This is thick, too thick to session but delicious enough to have several servings of. Paradoxes abound when you decide to drink pumpkin pies in a glass. Live on the edge, watch The Perfect Storm by yourself and try not to cry. That kind of shit.

Narrative: At the heart of it, Smilestrine Grimstare was a shitty Grim Reaper. It’s not that he was bad at claiming souls, on an administratively level, he was incredible at collecting and sorting souls. The problem was those damn 3 autumn months that just warmed his black heart. How many times had he showed up at the Thanksgiving dinner with a hateful disposition, ready to rip the life from grandpa, when he smelt that sweet biscuity pumpkin pie. No, Smilestrine was not a heartless reaper, he just loved the holiday’s too much for that. Once his vengeful scepter was about to claim the life of a child in a cancer ward, that pile of leaves was left there almost intentionally. His robe dragged playfully through the maple, pine, and ash landscape, leaving leaf angels in his wake. “Blow out your candles Great Uncle Earl! That’s 103 Halloweens on the face of this Earth!” the family exclaimed as Mr. Grimstare knocked his head back and savored the burnt hickory scents. Death could wait with pies this succulent.