To prove to myself and to my readers that October is more than just about bad horror movies and costumes and demons, I’m going to bring back something that we haven’t seen for a good long time:
One of Dylan’s Slightly Drunk Beer Reviews!
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, because I don’t have much to say anymore. All the beers starting to blur together into one big boozy haze. Since I couldn’t think of anything interesting to say, I decided to leave them alone until I did. And now I do.
Since it’s Fall, there are a large number of pumpkin flavored beers out and about. I’m going to review a couple of them, so you know which one is safe to serve at your party this 31st.
Today, we’re going to start with an offering from Sam Adams, since they’re a local brewery and all. They have a couple of seasonal ales out right now, but the best, by far, is their Harvest Pumpkin Ale.
The thing I’ve been loving the most about the pumpkin ales I’ve had is that they’re always a faintly orange color. Beer is often awful pretty, excluding those that are just that sickly, wan yellow color.
Like their other flavored beers that I’ve had, the flavor isn’t overpowering. I’m not gagging on pumpkin spice. And the flavor really is less reminiscent of pumpkins then of the spice in pumpkin pie. It tastes like cinnamon and nutmeg and a host of other spices that I can’t identify. It tastes like Fall, in other words. Specifically, Fall just after Halloween, more toward Thanksgiving.
It’s not a thick beer, nor an overly bitter beer. It’s more a beer for people who don’t drink beer that often, your hard cider drinkers, for instance. It’s well-rounded, without being too in-your-face with its flavor. This is a good Sam Adams beer.
Unlike their Bonfire Rauchbier, which was one of the worst beers I’ve ever had, even including that one raspberry flavored beer I drank that tasted like spoiled yogurt. It’s a beer whose entire marketing revolves around the fact that it tastes like a bonfire and, by god, they deliver. It’s like drinking a bottle of artificial smoke flavoring, if that artificial smoke flavoring had been fermented in a vat of tepid beer for a couple of months.
Sam Adams Harvest Pumpkin Ale gets an A, but loses some points because its seasonal companion, Bonfire Rauchbier made me want to strangle kittens it was so bad.
Dylan Charles
dylancharles.net 
You almost make me want to try it.
I am going to try it. I think it was the pumpkin pie comparasion that got me. Good blog