Punk'n Punk'd

Wow so it's been awhile! I've been drinking plenty of homebrew, but just haven't taken the jump to reviewing my own stuff consistently yet. Time to get back on track!

It's pumpkin season...well, pumpkin season is on it's way. What does that mean? Well, it USUALLY means pumpkin beer in another month or so. But, pumpkin beer has already flooded my local liquor stores! It's my favorite variety of beer on the market. So, obviously I grabbed one of each of those that were available and set myself on the quest to find that elusive answer: which beer is the BEST pumpkin beer of 2012!

Punk'n from Uinta (who we've spoken highly of before) is a solid effort at pumpkin beer. Note I say effort, not success. Unfortunately I don't have the picture after its pour thanks to a phone backup but it looked solid out of the bottle. It had a nice dark orange, brass color with a small head. I could be imagining things, but even the foam had a nice tint.

The flavoring is where I have an issue. Granted, I'm looking for a big, bold pumpkin beer. A beer that stands on the shoulders on other pumpkins and squishes gourds for fun. This is not that. The aroma was little different than a sweet Oktoberfest brew. There was a decent spicing and a good mix of sweetness. Subtle but not amazing.

Small head. Im probably making it up, thought there was a orangey hue to the foam. Aroma wasnt pumpkin as much as it was caramel or spiced. Color of amber hue, clear and crisp. Crispy,slightly spicy, sweetness, hint of pumpkin. Subtle but not amazing. Beer Advocate rated this organic pumpkin beer (it does get props for it's organic nature) a 75 and I fully agree. This pumpkin beer won't be particularly memorable among the many fall options, and for that it gets a US PINTRS rating. Till next time!

Trust the Midas Touch?

Hey everyone!

And no, today's post hasn't turned this blog into an auto-mechanic forum.  Dogfish Head Brewery, one of the premier craft breweries around, also has one of the widest variety of craft beers.  One of these is Midas Touch.  The recipe for the brew is a Turkish recipe similar to one supposedly found in the tomb of King Midas himself (go ahead, check out the Wiki article for this ancient Greek mythology here).  Is this brew a royal flush, or more worthy to be flushed?

The bottle itself is pretty cool, and it stands out amongst the Dogfish line while keeping the trademark shark logo along the top of the bottle.   Dogfish describes the brew as balancing between mead and wine and as props to the website also suggests some tasting notes we should be looking for inside the bottle.  They include honey, saffron, papaya, melon, biscuity, and succulent (I question biscuity being a word but whatever).

It certainly pours light, and just looking at the picture above you can almost see that line Dogfish talked about as balancing between mead and wine.  It's a light golden color, and gives off the faintest, almost dainty sweet aroma of a flower.  So far, so good....

On the first sip I'm expecting some good ol' honey sweetness...and it's just not there!  This is one crossdresser of a beer.  It's a beer that wants to be a wine, or a wine that wants to be a beer.  I want to say its refreshing but, for me, it's almost slightly offensive to the palate.  It does have complicated flavors and distinct grape dryness with florals bordering close to what I'd expect to see in gin.  It maintains a particular dryness throughout, for better or worse.

If you can tell through this review, I wasn't a huge fan of it.  But I won't give this beer a bad rating just because I didn't like it.  It's notable for it's ingenuity and I can see how this beer will appeal to different kind of folk throughout.  As an aside, I also tasted this beer recently on tap and was more impressed by it flavors (yes I know, tap beer is tops anyway).  The beer deserves at least a Imperial PINTRS, for ingenuity but for also missing some of the mark when translated to the bottle.  Till next time!