Pumpkinhead Ale
Shipyard Brewing Company

 

 

Purchased at Yinzer Valley Farms for their Oktoberfest.

This pumpkin beer is weak, overly spicy forward and generally not good. Certainly one to pass on next time i run across it.

kind of a bit thin, but not bad.

 

 

RB transfer

Pours a pale orange. Thick foam. Pumpkin spice aroma. Big pumpkin body. Sweeter than expected. Way too watered down. Not much complexity. This is more of a beginners pumpkin ale.

12oz undated twist off bottle poured into a teku glass at fridge temp 4.5% ABV. The beer pours bright orange amber with off white head. The head recedes to a thin ring and single layer of multisized bubbles. The aroma is mild, slightly vegetable pumpkin with copious nutmeg and pie spice. The taste is semisweet pale malt with notable, but not overwhelming, pumpkin and pie spice flavor. Very mildly bitter as the spice provides the balance here. The feel is thin bodied with average carbonation and a mostly dry finish. Overall, a fair seasonal pumpkin ale for those who indulge in that sort of thing.

Bottle. Good color, smells good. Tastes good, but the mouthfeel is pretty bad and watery. Could use some carbonation.

Thoroughly underrated and probably my personal favorite pumpkin beer. Lovely, balanced, spooky. Many pumpkin beers inevitably end up too sweet or too heavy, but Pumpkinhead stands out in its crispness and sessionability. Nice caramel malty taste, wheaty but light and refreshing body, and great lingering spice profile with a nice pumpkiny tinge. I will say that it *is* a tad overpriced (I believe I paid about $25 for a 12-pack in NC), but it remains worth it.

IN SUM: a quintessential spooky brew that's remarkably crisp and refreshing. One of my favorite seasonal beers.

PS: Shipyard suggests serving it with a sugar-cinnamon rim. Do not do that shit, it's great by itself.

 

This is basically the Budweiser of Pumpkin Beers. Not necessarily a bad thing, it’s delicious and widely available.

Spicy and sweet. I like it

 

Pours gem clear orange with an amber tint. 1/2" of off white froth settles to 1/8" after about two minutes. Extremely fine carbonation randomly swarms throughout. Spotty lace seems to be more of an afterthought than a real presence.

Nutmeg is strong, with cinnamon tickling the nose. A light perfume of caramel follows.

The flavors are all rather subdued, with very light spice within a Pretentious Beer Co. Dimpled Mug. The Wheat Beer base seems to be much more evident than one would anticipate from this style, almost the dominant component. Faint sweetness is accompanied by nearly non-existent bitterness. The finish is long and mildly irritating. Warmth brings out gourd flavors.

A thin, watery texture with no discernible alcohol. Carbonation if soft, very faint, and reveals a metallic sensation.

One could easily consume many of cans of this beer, however it is fairly hollow for the style, or even for the base style. As I finish the can, the base seems more akin to Kristalweizen. This is a decent beer, just noting exciting, and one expects a little excitement from a Pumpkin Beer.

 

 

Delicious. The pumpkin spice element is not subtle at all like in a lot of ales, but it's unsubtle in a good way. I don't care if liking pumpkin spice stuff makes me a "basic white girl," I don't care if beer snobs think it's too sweet, I just don't care. This is some of the most fun I've had with beer.