Episode 78: Post Road Pumpkin Ale – So where is Post Road anyway?

This week we look at another Pumpkin Beer, Post Road Pumpkin Ale a Brooklyn Beer in disguise.

News

It seems that the maker of the iBeer application, an iPhone application simulates a beer pouring when you tilt the iPhone back, the beer appears to be drank, is suing Molson Coors. The applications creator is claiming loses of $12.5 million in damages because Molson Coors are using their knock-off to advertise their Carling Black label brand of beer. The breweries version, names i-Pint is free, which the iBeer application costs $2.99.

Post Road Pumpkin Ale

• So another week, another beer, and this week we will be going to Post Road Brewery…wait, there is no Post Road Brewery. This weeks beer is just really a Brooklyn Brewery beer in disguise!
• Brooklyn Brewery, a favorite of YNB, is located in, you guessed it, Brooklyn, New York. Once again, this beer is one brewed by Garret Oliver, the brewmaster that we may refer to quite a bit on this show.
• Post Road Pumpkin Ale weighs in at 5.0% abv is about a pretty average abv for this style.
• The story behind this beer, or at least so says the six pack holder, is that in the 18th Century, colonial Americans brewed wonderful and interesting ales using local ingredients. Although barley was the main ingredient, pumpkin was also often used. They were used for the spicy flavor, and spices.
• The beer is brewed with four types of malt, 2 types of hops, and apparently hundreds of pounds of pumpkin. I will be honest, it really didn’t taste like hundreds of pounds of pumpkins.
• This beer pours a medium orange, with a slightly off white head that tends to stick around for a couple seconds but not too long.
• The minute that you pour this beer you can smell it. The aroma is spicy to some degree, maybe some cinnamon and nutmeg, think about a slight pumpkin pie aroma. You really can’t smell any hops or citrus here at all.
• The taste is not as sweet as some of the other pumpkin ales that I have had, however you can tell that the spiciness is there. It is pretty balanced overall, with some bitterness on the end but there is some spiciness and not a ton of sweetness. I will say though that it doesn’t have a lot of mouth feel, however there is some pumpkin on the end with the aftertaste.

Next Week

So next week, if I can find it, will be Pump King from Southern Tier. I looked for it this week but could not seem to find any, but I do have one more place to look, so we will see!

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Episode 77: Jack’s Pumpkin Spice Ale – Yep, another Budweiser product

We start a new series with another AB product Jack’s Pumpkin Spice Ale. A good place to start with Pumpkin, we’ll be stepping up from here.

News

Another year, another list of winners from the Great American Beer Festival. Some stats from this years festival, a total of 432 breweries attended, 2902 beers were in competition, and 225 medals awarded.

Jack’s Pumpkin Spice Ale

• Of course, one of Jim’s favorite things about Halloween and the fall in general is all the fun and exciting beers that come out.
• Not only do you have beers like Octoberfest beers, which has basically already come out, you have pumpkin beers, that generally come out around now, and then in the coming weeks, just before winter starts, you have some of the barelywines, winter warmers, and porters and stouts. Beers that are great for the winter weather.
• A pumpkin beers can vary quite a bit. Some brewers will add the pumpkin to mash, some will add it to the boil, and some will just put them in as flavoring, either real or artifical. If some of those words don’t make sense, listen to our brewing basics show. The beers also tend to have a lot of the “fall” seasonings as well, such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.
• Generally speaking, these are not going to be bitter beers. They will be much more mild, or even sweet. There really isn’t going to be a lot of hop character to these beers.
• Jack’s weighs in at 5.5% ABV and is brewed under the Michelob label.
• This beer first came out a few years ago, and according the the website is made with all malt, pumpkins, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, and clove.
• The beer poured amber, almost an orange in color, and has a little bit of that pumpkin pie aroma on the nose, but that tends to dissapate quickly.
• The taste of pumpkin is there, however it is not overpowering by any means. There is a little bit of bitterness with this beer, but the sweetness of the malt is really the main chord here.
• Overall, this isn’t a bad beer, but it isn’t a great beer either. I would have to call this somewhere middle of the road. If its there, give it a try, but if not, you haven’t missed much.

Next Week

Well, if I can find one that I like, we are going to do another pumpkin beer. Possibly one from Southern Tier, possibly one from Brooklyn. It all depends on if the beer Gods are with Jim.

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Episode 29: Dogfish Head Punk—Don’t be scared

Our first in person recording. If it sounds like we are sitting in a room with nothing on the walls and hardwood floors it is because we are. We are looking at aDogfish Head Punk, their fall seasonal.

News

The Boston Brewing company is suing an Oregon man named Sam Adams who is running for mayor of Portland. Apparently Sam Adams is claiming they own the trademark on the name “Sam Adams.” Word is they are suing the national archives because their trademark is on the Declaration of Independence.

Dogfish Head Punk

• This beer is brewed by Dogfish Head in Delaware. We’ve covered Dogfish Head before and there isn’t much more to say except they make great beer.
• This beer is no exception, it weighs in at 7 percent alcohol by volume and is advertised as a brown ale
• That description is accurate as the beer pours a nice redish brown that isn’t too dark you can’t see through it.
• The taste of pumpkin comes through a lot more in this beer than in the Blue Moon we talked about last week.
• The taste is not too hoppy or malty it is a different tasting beer.
• This beer is a bit harder to get, so this might be a good preview for next year.

Next Week

We are taking a bit of break with the series. We are going to be doing a questions and answers show next week where we answers some questions we’ve already gotten so stay tuned for some beer wisdom.

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Episode 28: Blue Moon Harvest Moon – Do I see the great pumpkin around?

This week we start our mini-series on Pumpkin beers with Blue Moon’s Harvest Moon. So get ready for Halloween with us.

News

The raw goods needed to make beer, including the barley and hops are going up in price. I have read that this may increase prices as much as 25 percent on a six pack. Now the trick here is that some of the beers that we talk about use more hops that some of the lighter beers, and may actually go up even more in cost. Just something to really keep your eye on over the next couple months.

Great American Beer Festival

Once a year most of the brewing world in America stops and goes to the Great American Beer Festival in Colorado to have their beers judged and sampled by one and all. This year, there were 450 brewers pouring various beers of all kinds of styles there. Some of the noted winners include Victory Prima Pils which one a silver medal in German style Pilsnener, 312 Urban Wheat Ale from Goose Island Beer Company, and Troegenator from Troegs brewing company in Harrisburg, PA one a gold for Bock style.

Blue Moon Pumpkin Ale

• This weeks beer comes from Coors Brewing Company, perhaps you’ve heard of them.
• The Blue Moon brand came about in the Sandlot Brewery, which is the brewery at Coors Field, home of the hottest team in MLB right now.
• You may recall, or want to go back and download our previous show on just regular old Blue Moon, which we covered several months ago in our Hefeweizen series.
• The distribution for this beer is pretty damned fantastic. It is one of those beers that if you can’t get it, then you must live in the middle of no where and just can’t get any beer.
• Now, lets talk about this little beer here. It weighs in at around 5.6% abv, and is generally released in the fall, so you should be able to get it say from September to November.
• The taste is kind of malty with a spiciness to it that you would kind of expect from the season; cloves, nutmeg, allspice, and pumpkins.

Next Week

Well, next week we will be doing a semi-live show. Jake is coming out to Chicago and we will be recording a show or two while we are actually both in the same state, yeah its a novel idea we know. We will be covering our last pumpkin beer next week, Dogfish Heads Punk.

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