Jolly Pumpkin Bière de Mars

Nice amber pour with a thick white head. Big dry sour apple aroma. Dry bitter sour apple taste. Very champagne like dryness and fruitiness. Finishes with a bitter aftertaste, very dry.

Amber with some head and lacing. Aroma is vinous; notes of champagne (I hate champagne!). Subtle sourness with tannins. Thin bodied with a clean palate. It was pretty good. I would have enjoyed it more if it weren’t for the champagne flavor.

Courtesy SecretSanta. Pours a lightly cloudy copper color, with a light off white head. Smells of the big JP funk, assorted apples, plums, pears, and light acidity and tartness. The flavor was pretty funky as expected. The fruits really surface up front, but take a backseat tothe funkiness and tartness in the finish as usual with these guys brews. A curious little sweet cinnamon flavor was interesting towards the end as well. Another solid offering from a great brewery.

grandaddy had a barrel out back of the ol’ shed filled with nails and license plates and broken tire chains and such. after the shed blew down, that oak barrel filled with rain water-- and though it took nearly a generation-- the broth of metal, hard water and decay--plus maybe a few dead birds and some anti-freeze-- eventually turned the very color and consistency of this biere de mars. kinda smelled like this beer too, as i recall. the brew is mostly cloudy, ruddy as autumn willow, with suspended little bits of beer vitamins-- that taken daily will help to decrease memory. very nice head, lasting, one that will re-appear later in another costume: that of a bright carbonation that dances and sparkles across the stage to the delight of this audience. heavy brett and french mustard lead in the aroma. then i find dill weed and wine vinegar, medical tape, dried peach, with an earthy champagne background. imagine a bright carbonation mellowed by a milk gravy yeastiness; imagine very sharp lemony-tasting aged hops that grew even bigger fangs in their dark woody coffin of oak; think of the drying dust of a flemish horse barn, mingling in a blur of microbes with honied baklava, and imagine that it’s both contemplative and refreshing. you’ve got the idea: and finally imagine that your friend jeff left a bottle just for you after his last visit. cool. that’s where i’m at. (maybe grandaddy shoulda bottled some of that rusty muck). thanks to TAR.

hazy brown, good amount of foam, lacing is nice. Spicy nose, some yeast, almost woody. Flavor is slightly hoppy on the start, some definate fruits dried fruits, spices oak some caremel, the booze is well hidden, creamy mouthfeel.

My first biere de garde. $10 for a brown bomber. Attractive mild piquant banquette. A cloudy noctilucent ferrruginous brew. Big alabaster tan head that fades rapidly to foamy rocks and lumps. Barmecidal carbonation that comes on with a fine fizz then disappears. Immediately the taste starts off tart but it rapidly evolves into a pickwickian bitter quagmire. A lambic beginning and an American pale ale ending. I was not really expecting much from this since the only reason I got it was to try a sample of this style. Overall, not bad except for that cursed medium bitter finish. Too expensive for what you get.

Bottle. Musty grapefruit malt aroma. Cloudy orange brown color with giant head. Dry musty orange peel/grapefruit and light malt flavor. Very slightly sweet for a second after swallowing followed by a dry hops finish. Another work of art by Jolly Pumpkin.

Pours rather boisterously a ruby gold color with massive 1-inch dense sudsy head. Cider-sour on the nose, flowery and bitter-citrusy; seems more like a gueze than a biere de garde. More sourness on the tongue, crisp carbonation quickly cleans the palate leaving surprisingly strong medicinal hoppy bitterness on the palate. Grapefruit and melon pop out on the tongue, along with dusty spices and metallic tinges. Light body, yet heavy carbonation fills the mouth quite quickly. Alcohol is well buried. I can imagine this being very refreshing on a summer deck. Impressive depth for an American brew.