Jolly Pumpkin La Roja

Brewed by Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales
Style: Sour Ale
Dexter, Michigan USA

Pours an amber orange. Decent head retention. A sour fruit and spicy hop aroma. Flavor is tart, complex and wine like. Finish is dry with oak wood abundance. A not too much, too little sourness. Classy stuff.

Bottle. 10 cl. sample. Pours a clear, deep reddish brown with a light brown head. Aroma is dry red wine with some spicy notes. Tart flavour which doesn’t open up until the finish; still tart but with dry red wine notes like the aroma. A nice beer, but a bit boring in the long run. Still, quite good. 28-10-08.

Bottle. [thank you skortila/caesar]
Pours deep red orange with a fine, creamy, staying, off-white head. Aroma is great. Some oak, cherries, vanilla, cardemum, citrus and light hops. Highish carbonation, fine mouthfeel. Flavour is quite hoppy dry, some clear oak, a bit of biscuity malts and citric acid. Some fruity tartness, especially at the first of each taste. Then the oak takes over, mellows the tartness and then some maltiness, grapes and light spice finish it off nicely.

Pours a slightly orange, cloudy amber. Nice, complex aroma and flavor. Citrusy and hoppy but without much bitterness as such. This is probably the most full-bodied and complex sour ale I’ve had to date.

Body is an dark, amber color with only a little bit of head around the outside of the glass. Aroma is fully of cherries, wood, and tobacco. Reminds me of opening a humidor full of cherry cigars. However, it also has a tiny bit of a citrusy aroma. Very carbonated feeling on the front end, but the bubbles are quickly dissipating. The flavor is pretty sour with a bit of a red wine vinegar taste, but add cherries and fruit.

Hazy reddish amber with minimal tan head. Aroma of white wine, vinegar, wood, apple, dark fruits. Taste is pretty similar, but the sour dark fruits and oak seem to dominate. Nicely sour. Mouthfeel isn’t my favorite. Under-carbonated. Tastes like I left the beer sitting out for a little bit too long. Good overall, but not my favorite jolly pumpkin.

2008 bottle. Pours a hazy/cloudy deep orange/amber color with a tannish head. Good lacing. Aroma is sour apple, vinegar, earth, & dark fruits. Palate is medium to light with fairly light carbonation. Taste was real sour at first with an almost vinegar taste. I felt there was a hint of green apple in there. Theres also flavors of grapefruit, dark fruit, lemon, etc. I really can’t describ all the flavors. This was my first sour ale and it was quite an experience, albeit a good one. Big thanks to Mcbackus for sending me this one.

tap. Nice example of the style. Pours iwht brownish red color, with aroams of fruit and some lemon. Tartness and oak as well as cherry and stomne fruit are combined with some caramel flavors. very well balanced, not too sour and nice mouthfeel.