Dogfish Head Punkin Ale

Bottle - Pours deep amber with a big, frothy head. Smells of pumpin pie with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice--all the requisite spices. The taste is unexpected--tastes like a Belgian ale. There’s dough, yeast, spice...I can’t taste any pumpkin at all. There’s a little sweet malt and hops to balance it all out at the end, but what’s the point of calling this Punkin if there isn’t actually any pumpkin?

Location: Wanted to update this rating, so I picked up a bottle at Gilly’s and drank it 9/20/09

Aroma: Nice pumpkin spice aroma, not quite as nice as I remembered, some brown sugar and yeast too
Appearance: Pours a clear copper-orange color with a thin white head
Flavor: Similar to the nose, quite a bit of spice up-front, has a really nice pumpkin flavor, and a yeasty, sweet malt finish
Palate: Nice mouthfell, some fizziness is present, medium body
Overall Impression: I think this is a pretty good pumpkin beer, one of the better ones. As fall comes around again, I realize that this is a style that I really seem to enjoy quite a bit, especially on an early fall evening complete with football and beer. Every year, DFH does a very nice job of achieving what I had hoped for with this brew. I can see why I had previously mentioned a little too strong a pumpkin flavor, but I’m really liking that flavor this time, and not bothered at all by its strength.

Old rating: (Was a 3.3)
Had this one many times.
Overall Impression: Dogfish doesn’t make any bad beers that I’ve tried. This one’s good again, a little too strong of a pumpkin flavor, and a nice taste to it.

Bottle: Poured a hazy orange amber with white head. Aroma is strong with pumpkin and spice mainly nutmeg. Taste is spicey with nutmeg and pumpkin, finish is a slight metallic.

raisin, vanilla, amber, hazy, frothy, heavy cloying sweetness, lightly bitter, average carbonation,

Bottle from Total Wine in Roseville, CA. This is one of the better pumpkin ales I’ve had. The fresh one I had was good, but this beer doesn’t age well. I got some more on special, and it was forgettable. Nice nutmeg, cinnamon, and spice.

A pretty good pumpkin ale as far as they go. Decent taste, and spices and a smoky finish to it all. Overall smooth going down.

Pours a reddish orange color with a moderate off-white head. Aroma is spicy, with notes of allspice and cinnamon. Flavor is similar although its worth noting that the pumpkin flavor is really muted. Not bad, but not as "pumpkiny" as I was expecting. Nice and smooth drinking. Not bad, but not something that I’d want on a regular basis.

Bottle from Total Wine in Roseville, CA. Poured an orange color with a large white head. Smelled of pumpkin and fall spices. A little too much nutmeg for me and needed a little more hops to balance the sweetness. Overall a well made beer.