Spoooky Beer Review: Southern Tier Brewing Company’s “Imperial “Pumking”

 I’m taking it upon myself to review as many Octoberfests and Pumpkin Ales as I possibly can during the Pre-Halloween Season. All while listening to “Thriller”.

Next up: Southern Tier Brewing Company’s Imperial Pumking

The first thing you’re going to notice with any pumpkin ale is that they tend to have an orange cast to them, and Pumking is no different. Look at that orange luster. If you forget, even for a second, that you’re drinking a pumpkin beer, that color will always remind you.

Around this time of year (you know, end of August, Halloween time), you can’t swing a dead black cat without sweeping half a dozen pumpkin ales off the shelf. There are some decent ones out there, but for the most part, the first thing you taste when you drink one is cinnamon. And the last thing you taste will be cinnamon. And in the middle there too.

There is one out there that’s a huge offender in the cinnamon department, but I won’t be reviewing that tonight. But it’s coming. It’s coming.

It’s like they’re not really shooting for the flavor of pumpkins and more going for the flavor of pumpkin pie. And then decided that would be too hard, so they just went with cinnamon instead.

Pumking does have a cinnamonny flavor to it, but it’s more of a flourish at the end. The dominant flavor here, is the rounded, orange and nutty flavor of pumpkin. Imagine that; pumpkin flavor in a pumpkin ale. It’s robust and strong, a bulldozer of fall flavors and it just makes me think of the whole damn season. And we’re still in summer!

To top it off, the label goes a long way to making it a strong Halloween beer. It claims it’s named after a creature of Celtic folklore and that it would waylay travelers. It has a scary story! On the bottle!

Two beers in and I’ve already found two beers I would make people drink on October 31st.

I give Pumking five Bluebeard’s wives and a Druidic blood sacrifice.

-D-