Welcome back to the Epic 2024 Pumpkin Beer Battle!!
You can see the contenders and results of Round 2, Here.
First, some backstory: Now that the weather has started to lean more toward the cooler temperatures (he says, after spending a week in the high 80’s) I think it’s time to throw open the arena doors and see what happens. To that end, I present to you Round 3 of the 2024 Epic Pumpkin Beer battle where I pit every offering from every brewery I can find…
Sidebar: “That I can Find” means what’s available in the stores in my area. Depending on where you are, you might have something that doesn’t appear here, and it’s really hard to get beer shipped into the state from outside, let alone over a national border.
…against each other until – If I’ve planned this right – we reach the quarter finals, semi finals, and Ultimately the Final round on October 27th (Which is a Sunday. Time wasn’t working with me on this one).
Another sidebar: I’m going to be rating these entries on a scale of 1 to 10 based on very exacting criteria, like, how well I enjoy it, and how close it approaches the pinnacle of achievement: Pumpkin Pie in a bottle or can.
Are you ready to Rumble???
Here – in no particular order – are the Round 3 Competitors!
Big Lake Brewing Rolling Gourd (6.5 APV, 13 IBU)
This is a new one on me, and I was pretty pleased to discover it, as it’s a solid offering from my neck of the woods (Kind of). This one is a porter and I was happy to discover that the Porter notes (Chocolate, coffee) didn’t knock heads with the pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg. In fact the mild chocolate finish was a nice touch. I could easily see this rolling on into the winter months (assuming that it’s not a “There and gone” seasonal).
Overall, this was a tasty drink. A solid contender for Round 3.
Score: 8/10
Eastern Market Stingy Jack (6.0 APV, Was unable to find any IBU info from the brewer)
Another local entry, right up the road – as the crow flies. This one was a sour beer – says so right on the tin, so I had an idea of what I was in for from the get go. This wasn’t as sour as the previous entry and I could definitely pick up notes of cinnamon and nutmeg, but the overwhelming notes were the sourness of the beer.
Again, I don’t have much experience with Sour beers – though over the past couple of week, that has been changing – and I’m finding that they just aren’t my preferred style. As an attempt at a Pumpkin Beer, this came a long way from last week’s sour entry, but the balance is still off, favoring the sour to the point where that’s almost all you taste.
Score: 4/10
Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin (9.0 APV, 26 IBU)
I confess that I had High Hopes for this beer (Again, very unjudge-like of me), and while this beer did have all the right notes that you’d expect in a Pumpkin Beer, they were disappointingly at all the wrong volumes. The Pumpkin-Pie-In-a-Bottle notes that you’d expect appeared like afterthoughts, and the 9% APV didn’t do this beer any favors.
Score: 6/10
New Holland Brewing Ichabod (4.5 APV, 26 IBU)
This was a late entry to the round (which is why this post is going live on Monday, rather than the usual Sunday). And I’m really liking that of the four beers in this round, three of them are local. I’m a fan of other offerings from New Holland Brewing. I’m looking at you Cabin Fever and Crimson Keep (Part of their Dragon’s Milk line of bourbon barrel-aged beers) and I confess that I had high hopes for this Beer. I mean, I appreciate the literary reference to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and these brewers have but out some stellar beers but this one didn’t quite hit the mark for me. All of the proper notes were there but they were all too subdued for me. Part of me wished for a volume knob on the can that I could have turned up. I don’t know how to better describe it.
Score: 6/10
And there you have it! An exciting Round 3 with a late entry and a pleasantly overwhelming selection of offerings from the local brewing community – a trend that I hope continues, not just with Pumpkin beer, but overall. As we close in on the end of September, we’ve got three strong contenders coming into October. Whose other offerings will join them as we (ok, I) progress toward the knock out stages to discover which Beer reigns over the Pumpkin patch?
Stay tuned for Round 4, coming up next week.
Thanks for reading. Be safe out there. Be Excellent to Each other – and yourself.
I’ll see you on Thursday.
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