Tag: reviews

Pumpkin II This time it’s Chocolate

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+++ Well, it has been a month and it is still technically Autumn, so I am having another Pumpkin ale.  This time we have for our evening sipping pleasure, something called “TREAT” from Midnight Sun Brewing, out of Anchorage, AK.

+++ It is very highly rated for is style on RateBeer, and as i am about to open it, I can only hope that it has calmed down suffeciently from me droping it when I got out of the car.  It banged a few times as it fell eventually hitting the pavement with a loud “Clink”.  The head space was solid foam when I got it inside so I put it in the fridge for an hour before I dared get it out and open it.  Here goes….  We’re good.

+++ Alaska is famous for, among lots of other things, giant pumpkin growing.  Apparently the long daylight in teh summers and the lack of most of the pests and diseases that the lower 48 states have just do not exist in AK.  a 700 pounder was grown up there a few years ago.  I wonder how many of those Midnight Sun Brewing would need to make a batch of this beer.

But I digress….

+++ Very dark Brown/Black pour with a small milk chocolate colored head that quickly faded but maintained a thick ring around the edge of the snifter.  Like onof those oil spill clean-up floats they use to corral spilled crude oil onthe ocean.   A roasted aroma but sweet, like chocolate cookies and instant cocoa, and some classic pumpkin pie smells as well.  Cinnamon and allspice maybe.   Lots chocolate imediately on the first sip, that quickly morphs into a more smokey, scalded chocolate milk or like the little bit that burs on teh bottom of the pan when you forget about the chocolate pudding you are making.  The spices a re mild, and the pumpkin even milder.   I guess they are ballanced.  it is not a pumpkin pie bomb, that’s for sure,  but I was hoping for a little more.  Quite heavy, thick pallate that seems to coat your mouth.  Softly carbonated. Very low bitterness, the lable says 30 IBUs, that even seems high.  But with these big sweet roasted flavors, they would taste knocked down a bit I suppose.

+++ Last month when i had one of these Pumpkin ales I asked “where’s the Pumpkin” we I can’t say I found it but this one is pretty good but closer to a sweet British porter than a pumpkin ale.

Lion

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Anyone who knows me knows that I like Stouts. However there are a few sub categories of this dark roasted malty wonderousnes that I and the beer geeks I run with, recognize. Sweet, Milk, Imperial, Foreign, Dry, and Russian Imperial (the king of them all). Sure there are examples of each that blur into adjacent sub genres sometimes, ( “is this a regular stout or a tame imperial” for instance. ). But the powers that be at BJCP have decreed that there are in fact several different types of Stout Beer.

The one I am trying tonight is Lion Stout. It is classified as a Foreign Stout, which historically meant that it was stronger and hoppier than it’s “domestic” brethren. I picked it out of Brewforia’s cooler partly because of  it’s  sub 4$ price. Also I recognized it’s label as a likely Foreign, which I like. This one was similar to what I hoped and expected. Deep black and full tan head. Rich sweet roasted aroma with molasses and smokey notes. A little beef jerky in the flavor but plenty of sweet smokey flavors an a little sour twang at the end. A little dusty as well. The ABV is 8.8 and is hidden well.  Foreign stouts are great and this one is a fine example.