I am friends with a lot of white girls and it’s the fall which means three things to them; wanting to go apple picking (for a maximum of a half hour, then they’re suddenly over it and want to just buy a bag), complaining about “the footballs”(exception: girls in fantasy football leagues who may be more vicious than me if they don’t get a dose of that sweet, sweet fantasy. Yes, that’s a Mariah carey lyric… try and keep up), and Pumpkin flavored everything.
Breweries learned this and they ALL MADE PUMPKIN BEERS. Some did not handle this task very well and don’t exactly have a great product, while others are so good I want to put on my uggs and scream “YAAAAAASSSS!” But how do you avoid making such a horrible mistake? Easy…. I just drank a bunch of them for you and I will tell you which one’s to avoid and which ones to buy a case of and throw it on insta!! Just promise me to never use a kelvin filter on it; not even ironically.
1. Southern Tier Imperial Pumking- Delicious. Smells like pumpkin pie, like scarily so. The taste is excellent and is full on pumpkin without being overbearing. I would willingly shower in this to attract a mate for autumn if that’s what it took to find love. I would also do it for general cleanliness purposes because it is just that good. The title is in the name.. this is the KING. My advice is to go buy a lot now so you can keep drinking it well into February. (Click here for a more in-depth review of Pumking)
2. Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin– I had 2 of these before dinner one time and was drunk. it’s 9% ABV and it’s delicious. Lots of pumpkin and spice flavors in the taste, smell, taste, and well… everywhere. It’s every bit as good as pumpking but certainly more full on liquefied pumpkin pie which is pretty wonderful to me. If you’re not looking for that you may not love this beer as much as me. If you want to get me to agree to do something stupid “cuz FALLLL ::insert every leaf emoji::!!!” and you promise me 2 of these beers; I will do it no matter how obnoxious the request.
3. Southhampton Pumpkin Ale- This is REALLY well balanced. Great smell of pumpkin and the taste isn’t overwhelming the beer. I still get that fall harvest feeling but with less sweetness. If you’re scared to go FULL-ON pumpkin this is the best route.
4. Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale- This is the perfect pumpkin beer if you’re the freakshow who loves pumpkin and beer; but hates pumpkin pie. It’s well balanced and makes it be known that it is clearly a beer with a nice, pronounced malty ale taste. I imagine this is what a lot of beer makers strive to duplicate when they set out to make their subpar beers. It’s probably the best if you are a communist who likes squash, but without cinnamon, nutmeg and the other spices to make it you know… actually taste delicious.
5. Dogfish Head Punkin’ Ale- This is a similar beer to the Weyerbacher; in that it is a nice, smooth ale first and foremost. This one however, is more pronounced in sugary, spice hints than the Weyebacher’s big, meaty, pumpkin flesh taste.
6. Sam Adams Harvest Pumpkin Ale- Another Solid, non invasive, and well balanced pumpkin beer. Nothing bad to say about it for sure. This is probably the basic bitch of pumpkin beers. WAIT I JUST CREATED BASIC BITCH INCEPTION. If you listen close enough, you can hear the sounds of people in Northface’s cuffing.
7. Fisherman’s Pumpkin Stout- Not your average pumpkin beer. One of the great things about pumpkin beers is that even your religious coors-light drinkers will give them a try. However, they would not be happy with this one. Due to its roasted malts and dark color, you are likely to receive the following commentary from the average drinker: “It is too heavy, it’s like a meal,” “It tastes like a Guinness and I don’t like Guinness,” or possibly “Do you want to finish this? I don’t really like beer.” Although none of these things are true, I would make the recommendation you NOT try this if you don’t like or haven’t tried many stouts. If you have, however, you will find this beer to be quite splendid! Mocha-y flavors blend with light pumpkin and very subtle spice. Great balance for a stout.
8. John Harvard’s Pumpkin Spice Ale- Now I don’t know if this one should even count because it comes from a local restaurant/brewery by me but trust me. Everyone on Long Island (white girl capital of the known universe) goes crazy over their pumpkin seasonal. JH even brings it back in small batches to attract crazy business temporarily throughout the year. Like valentine’s day… because that makes perfect sense! That’s not a joke. They literally brew a second small batch specifically for valentine’s day. It’s completely packed out throughout the fall there because Long Island is level 8 obsessed with this beer. Level 8 is the one where you implant a GPS tracking device into your S.O.’s arm without their knowledge in case you were wondering (I know you weren’t). It took me a little while, but being the Hardy Boys-esque detective I am; cracked the case on why everyone loves this beer… it’s definitely not for the actual beer. It’s their cinnamon sugar brim. It’s absolutely incredible. They have the exact ratio right of cinnamon to sugar on their brims that makes this beer taste as good as a fresh batch of crack cocaine (or is crack aged? I don’t really know much about crack other than even politically correct entertainers make crappy jokes about it). I know what you are saying….cinnamon sugar rim is the easy way out. I agree; without it this beer is highly ovverrated. No real pumpkin flavor, no real spice flavor, just a pretty boring beer that compliments sugar. I can feel the hate glares beaming on me as you read this and quite frankly… I don’t care, I want another.
9. Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale- Yes, the same brewery makes 2 pumpkin beers and this one is nothing comparatively. This is meaningless. it’s got cinnamon and pumpkin in the smell but it’s kind of just boring in the taste department… A lot of bars serve this with the cinnamon sugar cop-out, but even with that it is sub-par.
10. Blue Point Pumpkin Ale– See pumpkinhead Ale, Shipyard^. This is basically more of the same, no discerning pumpkin flavors beyond the smell and a very light finish of it. More sugary brim hysteria.
11. Harpoon Imperial Pumpkin Ale- This ranking is a bit low for how good this beer is on a scale of deliciousness as this is delicious for a chocolatey beer. It has plenty of Chocolatey goodness. Notice I said CHOCOLATEY?! not pumpkin, not cinnamon, or nutmeg or some sort of fall spice… but chocolate. It’s a good beer but the whole time I was drinking it I was thinking.. where the hell is the pumpkin?! I’ll call this a good beer but we should probably DQ it for false advertising.
12. Smuttynose Pumpkin– IPA’s are good. and Pumpkin beers are good but putting them together falls under the patented Gaffigan fruitcake theory of good+good=nasty crap.
13. Blue Moon Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale- This is one of the Weyerbacher imposter beers. Tries too hard to be a beer and a pumpkin ale and does neither. It sucks.
14. Shocktop Pumpkin Wheat- In the humble opinion of the author, this beer is awful. It’s not pumpkinny. it’s not wheaty, it’s just a half assed attempt at being balanced. Not even cinnamon and sugar can save it. It doesn’t evoke any feelings of fall grandeur. I don’t want to pretend like I give a crap about raking leaves or playing in them while you take pictures for your scrapbook, or going for a drive upstate to “see the leaves change,” but I’m willing to do these things if there is a good beer involved. This beverage will singlehandedly destroy any chance you had of enjoying this season.