Blue Moon Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale - Coors Brewing Company

Jadjunk

Georgia

2.7/5  rDev -11.8%
look: 2.25 | smell: 3 | taste: 2.75 | feel: 2.5 | overall: 2.5

"A pumpkin ale crafted with autumn's bounty of vine-ripened pumpkin and flavors of cloves, allspice and nutmeg. Then brewed with a touch of wheat for a smooth, lightly spiced finish." Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale (Previously known as Harvest Moon) is brewed in the Pumpkin Ale style. Available as their fall seasonal, I picked this up as part of a 12 pack variety kit. Date on the bottle is December 24 2012.

Poured from a 12 oz. bottle to a Blue Moon pint glass. Served above 48º Fahrenheit.

(Appearance) Pours a fizzy, thin dirty white head that dissipates quickly. Body color is a copper orange with some medium haziness and substantial carbonation. Head quality is pretty bad and lacing isn't present either. Not a pleasing appearance. 2.25

(Smell) Spices are prominent with allspice, cloves, nutmeg and (lesser, if present at all) cinnamon. The pumpkin, normally a centerpiece to the flavor and sweetness is faint, dry and perhaps too young. There's some odd tartness in the nose too, indicative of less-than-ideal age pumpkin. The malt sweetness is a bit shallow in this beer, led solely by an almost impossible-to-find wheat malt. Could either use a slight reduction in the spice or an increase in the malt bill, but a little of both would be ideal. 3

(Taste) Similar to the nose but even less pumpkin in the taste. Mostly led through dry pumpkin spices, there's a general lack of pumpkin and malt sweetness in the flavor, and thus a notable imbalance to the whole thing. Finishes grainy dry with a caramel and allspice blend, the former of which was concealed completely before. It's not the worst flavor in a pumpkin ale but there's little to no pumpkin character to enjoy and a general lack of sweetness. It leaves for something to be desired. 2.75

(Mouthfeel) Sharply over-carbonated, only accentuating the intensity and dryness of the spices more and focusing less on the pumpkin and malt sweetness. The wheat texture adds little thickness to the texture and doesn't help much. Body is light/medium for the style, light/medium overall. Alcohol presence is low. As mentioned before, there's a great imbalance between the spices and the malty sweetness that should be expected for this beer. 2.5

(Overall) For the majority of this drink I thought I was drinking a spiced ale rather than a pumpkin ale. The majority of the pumpkin character, which played a very minor role in flavor and aroma, was very unsweet and just didn't contribute at all. The spices were collectively too intense to let hardly any other flavors through. The overall concoction was sharply out of balance. This isn't the first beer that has been limited on pumpkin and heavy on spice, but it is suggestive that pumpkin ales released too early in the season are not likely candidates for a good quality well-rounded pumpkin ale. This beer needs to have a lesser spice emphasis and a more pumpkin drive to be enjoyable for me. Not recommended. 2.5

Coors Brewing Company's
Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale
2.7/5.00

Serving type: bottle

01-15-2013 03:10:20 | More by Jadjunk

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the appearance of Blue moon harvest moon pumpkin ale is a clear dark orange with minimal head and not a lot of lacing. It smells of a slight pumpkin spice with a hint of smokey cinnamon in the aftertaste. Its just an average pumpkin ale but has some hops to it as well.

Serving type: bottle

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