Anchor Bigleaf Maple Autumn Amber

Brewery: Anchor Brewing Co.
Location: San Francisco, CA
Style: Amber Ale
ABV: 6%
Price: $8.99/6pk

Anchor Brewing is no amateur when it comes to season beers. In fact, their 'Our Special Ale' (Christmas Ale) is one of the best seasonal releases out there. So, when I saw this Autumn Amber, I was intrigued.

Appearance: Pours a nice amber color, clean and filtered. This really is a great color. The head is quite fluffy and leaves a nice lacing on the glass. Great retention.
I also really enjoy the label on this beer. The maple leaf is fittingly the center of attention, and the design gives a retro and rustic feel to the bottle. Well done!

Aroma: Spiced malt, mild hops, caramel. There's also an earthiness to the smell that is quite nice.

Taste: Toasted and caramel malts, dried hops, mild fruit-sweetness, piney finish. No maple. The flavors are a bit all over the place to me. I don't really know what the identity of this beer is supposed to be, and I'm just not sure about the flavor profile here. I would have liked to see more of the toasted malt come through with a maple finish. Instead, the beer has a little bit of everything (except maple), but nothing really stands out. It's a mess, really.

Bigleaf Maple doesn't look like it tastes, and doesn't taste like it looks. And with maple in the name, you'd think it would be somewhere in the flavor profile. This isn't a bad beer, it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The best part of this beer was the appearance and aroma. It's a beautiful beer; it's just too bad the flavors didn't come through as I had hoped.

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale (2013)

Brewery: Dogfish Head Brewery
Location: Milton, DE
Style: Pumpkin Ale
ABV: 7%

Price: $9.99/4pk

Pumpkin beers come with a lot of hype and excitement. Unfortunately, a lot of them end up being a bust. Too often, pumpkin beers are over or under spiced and lack complexity and depth.Unfortunately, there are a lot of breweries that take advantage of savvy marketing schemes to get their mediocre beers in the hands of innocent and unsuspecting pumpkin-loving consumers.

Dogfish Head Punkin is not one of those beers.

Appearance: Copper-orange in color. Nearly perfect in terms of capturing the essence of the season in color. Frothy white head that coats the glass. The carbonation continues to dance well after the pour.

Aroma: There's a nice grainy smell to this beer that comes along with the pumpkin spices. The seasonal spices don't come off too strong. I also smell bread and yeast and maybe a bit of booze. You can almost sense that even without the pumpkin spices, this would be a good-smelling ale.

Taste: Dry pumpkin flavors hit the palate first, followed by a caramel-malt sweetness, and then finished with a slight dried bitterness from hops and alcohol. There's a balance to this beer. There's spice, bread, pumpkin, booze (rum), and malt. It's everything you could want in a Fall beer.

Mouthfeel: This is a medium-bodied beer that has a creamy feel at first, but ends with a crisp finish.

Overall: This beer drinks more like a really good amber or brown ale that happens to have some pumpkin spices, rather than the alternative. Maybe that's what makes this beer stand out among other pumpkin beers each year. This beer is an excellent example of how a brewery can participate in a seasonal lineup, give the consumers what they want, without compromising the quality of their product. I could drink Punkin year-round.

Punkin Ale is one of the beers I link to me getting into the craft beer scene. In fact, it's one of the first (and only) beers I have ever bought an entire case of. As someone who works in the non-profit world, cases are a big commitment, and I don't approach them lightly.

Dogfish Head is known for a bit zany at times with their "off-centered" ales. But there's nothing "off" about Punkin. In fact, I think it's one of the best pumpkin ales out there...if not the best.

Cheers!

Kentucky Pumpkin Barrel Ale

Brewery:  Alltech's Lexington Brewing and Distilling Co.

Location: Lexington, KY
Style: Pumpkin Ale/Seasonal
ABV: 10%

Price: $14.99/4pk

Autumn is my favorite time of the year. There's cool weather, football, and pumpkin-flavored everything! I have a few staples during this time of the year when it comes to pumpkin beers: Dogfish Head Punkin, Cigar City Good Gourd, and Southern Tier Pumking. But each year, there are newbies that find their way on the shelves, and I am always a sucker for trying new pumpkin beers.

Kentucky Pumpkin Barrel Ale is one that I have been excited to try and eagerly anticipated its distribution here in Jacksonville. Beer:30 was the first place that I saw with the Pumpkin Barrel on the shelves, and I was eager to bring it home and give it a taste.

So why was I eagerly anticipating this beer amidst the many other pumpkin ales that one can buy this time of the year? Well, for starters, anything aged in bourbon barrels gets my attention, and Alltech has proven themselves with their other releases. Combine that with an ABV of 10% and a limited release and I am all but salivating. Ok, I lied. I was definitely salivating. 

After a few hours in the fridge, I cracked one open and indulged. Here are my tasting notes: 

Appearance:  Nice copper color. Clear and rusty. The head is pretty too. It's a quarter-inch in size and sticks around for a bit, but not long enough in my opinion.

Aroma: This is Fall in a glass. I can pick up on some cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin, oak, and bourbon. These scents liven as the beer warms. I was able to identify a new ingredient every other minute or so. It's like an aromatic candle that keeps on giving...except you can drink it too!

Taste: Smooth is the first thing that comes to mind. Before I mention the various flavors, I think it's important to highlight how smooth this one is. The bourbon and vanilla stand out to me, which blend to create a well-balanced drink. Of course, the pumpkin, nutmeg, and cinnamon are easily tasted as well. The bourbon is blunt, which I appreciate. The finish is boozy and slightly bitter, possibly from the oak.

If you have had the standard Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale, you'll recognize a lot of the same flavor profile. Only this one is complimented with the harvest spices. Like the standard ale, the pumpkin variation is sweet, but it's not overwhelming. It seems to fall somewhere in the middle. 

Mouthfeel: This is a medium bodied beer with an appropriate amount of carbonation that is easily forgotten due to the overall creaminess of the beer.

Overall: I enjoyed this one when I first sipped it and I liked it even more after about 20 minutes of letting the beer warm in my glass. The aromas and flavors really blossomed after about 15-20 minutes. The 10% does have a warming effect, which isn't a bad thing. 

The only complaint I have with this is the price-point. $14.99 is steep. I know it's 10% and barrel-aged, but it still feels a bit overpriced for a 4pk. Nonetheless, Kentucky Pumpkin Barrel Ale has earned itself a spot on my annual list of pumpkin beers I can't wait to come out each Fall.