Dogfish Head Punkin Ale

Brewed by Dogfish Head Brewery
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Milton, Delaware USA

Bottle. Clear amber orange, frothy off white head. Aroma of many spices, roasted malt, yeast, and especially brown sugar. Flavor for the most part mirrors aroma but with more pronounced spiced pumpkin and caramel. Ends lightly bitter, nice dry finish.

Poured an amber color with a decent white head. Aroma of pumpkin, nutmeg, cinnamon and some malt. While I am not typically a big fan of the pumpkin ales this brew was a pleasant surprise. Nice taste of spices, cinnamon and a enough pumpkin flavor to qualify as a pumpkin ale but not so much it turned me off of the brew. Sweet and warming at the same time. Pretty nice.

On tap at the Bavarian Lodge. Though spiced ales are often hit or miss for me, I had decently high hopes for this one. It turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. There’s lots of spice on the nose. Nutmeg, cinnamon sugar, and brown sugar are quite big. Otherwise, it smells quite strong like vegetable juice with a bit of pumpkin. The color is fairly cool because it reminds me of pumpkin pie, with some creamy head and good lacing. The feel of this beer was quite a bit lighter than expected as well as the flavors. Spice dominate the flavor profile just a bit too much with pumpkin and other mellow fruits there as well. This one would be better served with more prominent brown ale qualities with the pumpkin and spice taking on a supporting role. This really wasn’t bad overall, but just didn’t work exactly for me.

Attractive and warming. I feel in past years the spices have been more well defined, and the bitterness balanced better. Still one of my favorite seasonal ales and one of my favorite DFH offerings.

Fiery amber, thin foamy white head. Musty nose of dirty malt, light spice, sugary no detectable pumpkin. Flavor is dirty, malty, and very sweet, also lightly medicinal, still no pumpkin. Sticky and sharply bitter finish. Wouldn’t say this is a spice beer, not even that it’s a decent beer.

Pours a medium amber with light tan head. Nose has the usual suspects of pumpkin and miscellaneous holiday spices. Reminds me of holiday cookies. On the palate the spices do a bit too much over the pumpkin for me, leaving the pumpkin and traditional brown ale characteristics in the backseat.

tons of pumpkin pie spice(cinnamon, clove, nutmeg) a little creamy...lacking on the actual punkin

This is what I like in a pumpkin beer. Not too pronounced on the pumpkin, a little bitter, a little spice (nutmeg, clove) and a bit of caramel malt. Easy and delicious drinker.