Who Put the Punk in Pumpkin?

It’s fall and you know what that means: knee socks, impending snow, flannel sheets, slippery fallen leaves, picturesque wooded drives, the slide towards the holiday season and pumpkin everything. This has, in recent years, included beer. Lots and lots of beer. Seemingly, if you’re a brewery which kicks out more than five types annually then one of those must include something with a preponderance of clove, nutmeg and cinnamon. And I guess pumpkin. Kinda.

As my love of beer has grown and my tastebuds have matured, I’ve noticed a glaring truth amongst the pumpkin beer genre which seems to go unspoken more often than not: this stuff is way more carrot cake than pumpkin, and way more carrot cake and pumpkin than beer. The spicier and more cake-flavored, the more popular. If I order a gingerbread latte from a particular popular coffee chain and love it, I’d argue that it’s not the taste of the espresso I love. It’s clearly the gingerbread flavoring (or at best the combination of the two even if the proportion is 70%/30% in favor of syrup).

Thus, our first taste subject:

Southern Tier Pumking (8.5% ABV, $2.30 single bottle price). Arguably, the king (if you will) of pumpkin beers. It’s not everywhere but where it is, it sells out and quickly. Bars can get away with selling it anywhere from an imperial pint for $4, to a 10oz. goblet for $10. Astonishingly the people will pay it and I know this because last Saturday night while on a Halloween bar crawl, I was one of those. That $4 pint by the way, is what I normally pay when I order it (which is not often). If I order beer, I want beer. I want hops, malt, yeast, fizz, cold. Not cake. The residual flavor is spice, the mouthfeel is thicker than a pilsner but not nearly a Belgian or even a red. The flavor is the dominant feature here, and for my money there are far more interesting beers on the shelf or in the tap. It’s fine for a 10oz pour, ideal even, but I could never have two in a row. Pumking is, to be blunt, the Sbucks Pumpkin Latte of beers: a creature unto itself not closely resembling its source beverage.

And then we have Dogfish Head’s offering: Punkin Ale (7% ABV, $2.59 single bottle price). Now this is a weird beer. For  everything I just said: I want a pumpkin beer to taste like beer with just a wee bit of spice, I kind of now take back. This is a very beery pumpkinish beer. The slightest hint of spices and flavorings are at first sip and they remain on the tongue for a while after, but the middle is just a kind of flavorless ale – though to be fair the bottle’s verbiage toes the line of pumpkin and brown ales. The flavor improves as the temperature rises, or at least the individual flavors become a bit more pronounced anyway. It has a nice sparkle and good body but I wouldn’t put it on my top three. The search continues…

A Common Spoken Valediction or Salutation

You’ve had those spring moments, I’m sure. The first crack of the bat, the first time the air smells like humid warmth, the first ray of sunshine that makes you want to stand in it rather than hurry through it because it’s accompanied by a 4 degree wind chill, the mere glimpse of the first buds, a red red-a-robin-a-bop bop boppin’ along your front walk. Or, in this case, the first whiff of Dogfish Head’s “Namaste”. Just a hint of June, right on the nose.

Their description saves me a lot of typing, so here you go: “A witbier bursting with good karma [I wouldn’t have said that last bit – ed.]. Made with dried organic orange slices, fresh-cut lemongrass and a bit of coriander, this Belgian-style white beer is a great thirst quencher.” Preeeeecicely! The essence is undoubtably Belgian (thought much like Champagne, it’s not Belgium beer unless it’s from Belgium thus it’s a “Belgium-style” beer). A bit of butter, a hint of lemon, a nice warm yeasty coat to the tongue, a bright happy hop. In fact, there’s almost a bit of citric sodium in the smell, which is cool and weird. Delightful! Ok, in the interest of disclosure, I’m biased. If I were to drink no other beer for the rest of my natural life it would be Belgian. I could write an entire series on the differences, attractions, downfalls and screwing-up of Belgian beers. (Incidentally, my unnatural life would be populated by heavy IPAs, in the interest of contrast.)

A Belgium in a larger format, you ask? Won’t you be on your ear by the bottom? No, I say. You’re not that lucky, sir. At only 5% in 22oz ($5.99), it can’t do much damage unless you’re a lightweight who hasn’t eaten all day. And you know what? That’s ok because it’s so tasty that it would be a shame to get schnockered on a lovely warm weather beverage such as this.

Speaking of Belgium and its fantastic selection of adult beverages, it’s actually a pretty fascinating endeavor that these generations of monks support themselves solely on the production of beers which happen to be pretty amazing. I mean think about it, how often do you associate the neighborhood church with excellent pastries when they have a bake sale? Not bloody likely. This is an interesting block of information about the standards and practices of the whole shebang, even though it’s Wiki I know it’s accurate.

Also worth checking out are Belgium IPAs. Spicy, citric, just a little buttery. Delightful! And if you’re ever in Chicago, look up Haymarket Brewery and see if they have Angry Birds Belgian Rye IPA tapped because I can promise you that it’s a specimen of the sort and you will not be sorry.

All Beer Goes Well With Pork

Duh.

Today, ladies and gents, we have North Peak’s “Vicious” American Wheat IPA, for your pleasure. Not light in color as you’d expect from a wheat and not cloudy either. The color actually, is a deep carmel almost Bass-esque ale hue. Lovely, actually. Very minimal head.

Image stolen from the interwebs

At first sip I encountered something I’ve only experienced with a few other IPAs and only in breweries: saltiness. The first time that happened, it occurred next to the man who brewed the beer so I was able to ask him the cause. He said something about sulfur though in my research for this post I can’t seem to find anything about that. Rather, the cause seems to have something to do with a few possibilities: either I am very sensitive to salt (and I am) or the water they use to brew has a higher sodium content than average and mixes with the naturally-occurring salts in the process. It fades as I sip, but the initial impact was surprising.

It may be my first wheat IPA so I keep trying to locate the wheat characteristics but am not sure what to look for, I feel it more accurately borders on a scotch ale if not a proper piney IPA. It does have the citrus, earthy element in step with an above average IPA but it’s not blowing me away. In truth, I picked this beer tonight because the other three I have in reserve are stouts which I don’t feel would go quite as well with the pork tenderloin I’m about to tuck into as soon as it’s finished resting. That said, all beer goes well with pork. Actually everything goes well with pork except for like, death. In which case, I’ll have yours.

*Ding*

Ok the pork is rested, the pasta is made and the beer is still cold. At this juncture let me just say that the IPA was the best call because it’s one very spicy rub and any other flavor would have both fought with and marred it (both the beer and the pork).

I suppose this entry is reflecting how I feel about the beer. Not very interesting (to me), great with a food pairing and most likely not a repeater. Perhaps on a patio in the sunshine it may be a better hit, but there’s not enough going on here to told my interest.

The Perilous World of Gluten-Free Beers

Oh, celiacs (heretofore referred to as “you” and if you click that link, it takes you to Wiki and I actually did a double-take at the frequency amongst Americans. Oh, what are we doing to ourselves that we don’t know how to control this until it’s too late?). My heart aches for each of you. For anyone to tell me I could no longer have my beloved grains, pastas, breads and beers would be the end of days. Take my eyes, take my sense of smell, take my pinkies but do NOT take my lasagne. I can only imagine the sad day when the news is broken to you, especially you beer drinkers. I’d pour one out for you but it would just make you bloat.

I’d had two gluten-free beers to date, one was great and the other was just ok. Both made by Green’s, they were the only gluten-free options that many bars carried so like it or lump it, if you’re boozing then that’s what you boozed with. The amber was actually fairly tasty, honestly. I’d never have known it was an odd duck based on the flavor. The Ale was a little more off kilter, flavor-wise. Sort of like well-disguised Sucralose – you know something’s up but you can’t put your finger on it. It was tart, it felt heavy-handed like a cider but had a yeasty finish that standard, not-too-hoppy beers should. I wish I’d have tried the dubbel but I’ve never seen it sold. Green’s are still hard to find, though more bars seem to see the need now more than ever. I bet most bars would let you bring your own bottle in if they don’t carry it, and I never say that about anything when it comes to bars and restaurants. Being that you all have a special case, I imagine you could bring a special case.

On we go. For today’s offering, I selected Dogfish Head’s “Tweason’ale“. 6% ABV, $2.34 loose bottle price, it typically comes in a four-pack.

Their description of it as is as follows: “we replaced the classic barley foundation of beer with a mild sorghum base. The hints of molasses and pit-fruit are balanced by vibrant strawberry notes and a unique complexity that comes with the addition of a malty buckwheat honey.”

Ok see, now I don’t love the taste of sorghum even when my chefs were doing cool things with it. It IS piney but it’s also sort of… weedy. It doesn’t have that round, malty, rich base that the barley would have brought. I don’t pick up molasses though, and the combination of the strawberry and the sorghum lends a tart, sour, somewhat imbalanced edge. It finishes dry with the honey notes coming in right before the end. It could easily be passed as a mutant lambic or strawberry cider, even. It does have a yeasty finish, but it’s very passive like an easy-drinking wheat beer (minus the wheat, clearly). Their talking site is right when it says that it’s wine-comparable to a rose´. It’s tart, I imagine it’s a rosy-pink in color but I forgot to pour it out before finishing it. Me and my classy self just drinks them straight out of the bottle these days but I promise, I’ll try to remember to put it in a glass and do the whole swirl and twirl in the future.

So the verdict is this: for all you poor suffering souls, this is an interesting option. I can’t imagine making a night out of them, or even having more than one given the distinctly strong flavors involved, but it’s a very nice break from the norm especially if you’re not a big fan of beer-tasting beers such as the ones Green’s offers. It was the only gluten-free alternative that I saw at my local shop but I’ll try to keep an eye out for more and pick some up to compare/contrast. I know St. Peter’s does a sorghum and a gluten-free beer but whenever I see those bottles I just want to go for the cream ale. I know where to get it, I’ll see what I can do. In the name of research, you know.

PS – Click on the Dogfish Head link, whatever that Cinemagraph thing is, is fantastic.