Cambridge Brewing Company: Brett Semetary

One year ago, or so, on Halloween night the fine folks at Cambridge Brewing Company put a batch of their Great Pumpkin Ale in oak vats with some lovely brettanomyces and let the demons due their work.
Fast forward almost one year and here I am sitting at the bar at CBC and I get the privilege of ordering this fine beer. It pours immediately cloudy, with a strong nose of all spice and funk. I can't quite describe funk, but when you smell it, you know it's funky. The immediate taste is that same funk sour with a ripe gourd and cinnamon and some other spices. The finish is all brett. As someone who loves sours, this beer is just bliss. In a world of much too sweet pumpkin beers this tart masterpiece is a much needed break. I'm definitely gonna have to make one more trip to CBC before it's gone.

Alltech: Kentucky Pumpkin Barrel Ale

Industrial super complex Alltech has been planning to take over the world against Superman for what feels like decades. Attacks on our modern computer system, buying airlines and colluding with oil companies to raise gas prices, buying the Daily Planet to control the media, and all around mayhem are just every day activities for Alltech.
Apparently one part of their plan to destroy Superman is through his other weakness, Pumpkin Beers. Let's face it, Clark Kent enjoys sweater weather, and what goes better with the leafs changing in Metropolis than a nice warm feeling pumpkin beer. The problem is, it takes like 50 beers to throw Superman off his game, and Lex Luther know it. So what did he do? He came up with a beer that was much stronger than the ordinary pumpkin beer, but equally as drinkable as beers half the strength.
Kentucky Pumpkin Barrel Ale has strongs smell of wood in the nose. The head quickly fades in my snifter that they recommend I use. (Maybe another even more secret plan that I don't even understand?) The taste is very upfront bourbon, with vanilla and woody tones in the front and cinnamon carrying up the back. The finish is dry and easy with the strong booze from the bourbon leaving a nice linger at the end of the sip. Realizing the trap, Clark decides to light up a cigar, sit back and sip rather than pound them back. Plan foiled.
Wait, sorry, I was thinking of Lexcorp, I have no idea who Alltech is. Quick google search and they're a distillery and brewery company in Kentucky, but their world domination plans are unknown at this time. Either way, it's a nice beer to sit back and sip on a chilly patio somewhere.

Beer Works: Pumpkin Ale Part 1

Part one of a two part plan to make pumpkin beers. First pumpkin beer, a simple ale with even amounts of spice and gourd flavors. Later I'll get into the second plan, Beer Works Black O'Lantern Pumpkin Stout, but the first beer from them is Pumpkin Works Ale. A very well made ale that balances a brown ale perfectly with all the spices you'd find in any typical pumpkin beer. Some of them are heavy on cinnamon, or all spice or nutmeg but Beer Works blends them all seamlessly in this beer, with just a nice touch of that gourd flavor from the pumpkin. It's not too dessert-y but just a good drinking pumpkin beer. I'm genuinely impressed with this one. Nice job, I might even buy a whole 6er to have as it gets even colder. 

The Tap: Marzen Scorsese

There's no shortage of puns in the beer world, but oktoberfest beers usually just get called oktoberfest. Thankfully, The Tap in Haverhill has stepped up to the challenge of a good pun for a fest beer, Marzen Scorsese. Since their label relaunch The Tap has been churring out excellent beer and Scorsese is no different.
Pouring a deep amber with a thin lace of head, this beer has sweet breads in the nose, mixed with some citrus buried deep in back. It drinks very smooth, with just a nice bubbly sweetness of toffee and caramel. The finish has a touch of bitterness but the sweetness is definitely the overriding presence in this beer. Very delicious, and would've been worth raising a stein with. Excellent beer.

Boulevard Brewing: Mid Coast IPA

I'm gonna cheat a little. Boulevard Brewing has released a new 12 pack that includes to new beers that have never left the tasting room. And while this beer isn't technically fall related, it came out in the fall, and it's freaking delicious.
Boulevard Brewing Mid Coast IPA is a 100 IBU beer but only clocks in at somewhere around 5.5%. The smell was immediately grapefruit and piney hops. It gave off a very nice head that lifted up in my mug and was a beautiful clear straw color. Once it hits my lips though, it's a beautifully balanced beer that carries a nice touch of sweet malts with a blast of amazing pine and grapefruit and some tropical fruit and finishes with a lovely bitter coating on my tongue to finish. This is how you balance an IPA, without too much sweetness, just enough malt to carry the hops. If this was a 6 pack I'd buy it but I guess I'll have to settle for the 3 I get in the sampler 12 pack.

Left Hand Brewing: Oktoberfest

Left Hand Brewing has been seriously effected by the floods in Colorado right now, including being forced to put out bags of their malted barley in place of sandbags cause it was all they had. It's going to be a tough road back for them, so we should start by buying a 6er of some of their beer.
Left Hand Oktoberfest has the most upfront bite to any Oktoberfest I've had. It has a bit of a resiny smell sitting over sweet breads in the glass. The hit on the tongue is a very strong bite of hops, with a little curdle in the booze from this guy. It's a strong Oktoberfest, up around 6.5% or so, and you can feel the warmth in your chest. The bitterness comes back after the sweetness fades and leaves it sitting on the tongue after it's gone. Definitely the most American of the fest beers I've had so far, with a big beefy hop presence through the beer. Nice interpretation, though I don't know if I could fill a stein with it cause I might not make it through too many of them. Still delicious though.

Wasatch Brewery: Pumpkin Ale

Wasatch Brewery was Park City, UT's first brewery since prohibition, and rather recently, they started popping up on the shelves of stores in Massachusetts. Let's see how the few folks who imbibe make a pumpkin beer.
Wasatch's pumpkin pores very clean, with very little head that fades quick. It has faint smells of all spice and nutmeg. The taste is light bodied with some light spicing, but the taste that stands out the most is surprising, Pumpkin. The taste is very gourd with some subtle bitterness in the finish. This is definitely the most pumpkin tasting pumpkin beer so far, but after that, it doesn't have much else going on. Worth it if you want a serious gourd beer.

Guinness: Red Harvest

Guinness has been coasting for some 400 years or so on it's original Guinness Draught Beer. Recently they've been trying to mix it up a little bit. In 2005 they announced they'd be releasing four brewmaster series beers. They gave up after three. They introduced Guinness Black Lager and flooded the market with ads to try and jump start it, but so far it makes up less than 1% of its sales. Now they're jumping into the most lucrative craft seasonal market, fall beers, with Guinness Red Harvest Ale.
As you can see, Red Harvest pours much like its older brother, dark with a nice fluffy head that quickly gets pulled down by the nitrogen. The immediate smell is strong roasted malts with some chocolate and faint coffee notes. The taste is at first very rich with up front sweetness with the same toasty malt flavor and a touch of toffee and caramel. The lingering taste is very thin though, almost a bit watered down. The finish is very dry with no bitterness what-so-ever and as quickly as it was here, it's gone. Unfortunately, this beer just don't hit the spot for me, coming off as a watered down Guinness with some caramel tossed in to "redden" it up. I guess there's a reason they've been making the same beer for so long.

Southern Tier: Choklat

In a sea of oktoberfest and pumpkin beers I lucked out with a nice dessert beer after a long Sunday of fighting through crowds at the SOWA farmers market was a nice treat after a long day. It was also a somewhat random treat when my buddy Mike brought me a bottle of Southern Tier Choklat stout that I left in his fridge when I moved 2 weeks ago. Dated 11/27/2011, I was pumped to open a beer that I'd been aging that long for two reasons, one  because I wanted to see if the conditions in my apartment kept the beer well, and if successful, if this beer was as delicious as I remember it.
Cracking it and getting a nice hsssss from the bottle was a good sign. Chocolate is the overriding smell and the theme of this beer. The 10% in this beer had completely faded and it sipped a delicious mix of roasted caramel and pure chocolate deliciousness. It really was a sip on pure chocolate. Fresh this beer has a bit of an alcohol bite to it, but two years of aging has made this the perfect dessert beer, with delicious liquid chocolate and some deep coffee. I could sip on this after a nice dinner and eat some delicious tiramisu. If you see it, get it and drink it.

Red Hook: Out of your Gourd

The first pumpkin stout starts with Red Hook Out of Your Gourd Pumpkin Porter. The beer pours a dark black with a nice brown roasted head, about a quarter inch up and quickly fizzles. The smell is the usual array or typical pumpkin pie spice. The taste is overwhelming cinnamon, with some coffee and roasted malt, very dry in the finish with a little bitterness as well. This beer just seemed to miss the sweet spot for me, with too much cinnamon, not enough chocolate from the malts, and the hops buried way too deep. It was easy to sip on with it's incredible dryness though, so at least drinking a few would be easy enough.

Joseph Brau: Octoberfest

I really can't believe that Dan Gordon graduated from a brewing engineer program in historic Weihenstephane, Germany, because the beer the Gordon-Biersch Brewing Company makes for Trader Joe's and Costco is at best, ordinary, and at worst undrinkable. While shopping for groceries I made the decision that if I'm gonna try a bunch of fall related beers, I had to try every one I could get my hands on.
Joseph's Brau Oktoberfest pours a light amber with a good inch of head to it. It smells sweet, and up front it's sweet on the tongue, with caramel and pilsner malt, but the finish is slightly sour, leaving it slightly off putting. I get very little hop bitterness anywhere in this guy either. I guess for 6 bucks I can't be incredibly picky but I wish if Trader Joe's was going to impersonate craft beer they'd offer something with some more backbone to it.

Weyerbacher: Imperial Pumpkin

I had my first non beer pumpkin flavored thing today, a pumpkin yogurt, so I figure with that flavor still lingering somewhere in my brain, let's review another pumpkin beer, Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin.
Immediately I wish it was chillier when I smell it being poured into the glass. The smell is strong nutmeg with some faint cinnamon in the back. The head on this guy disappears quickly leaving nothing but an amber pool of deliciousness. The beer itself has all the spice qualities that you'd expect from a pumpkin pie along with some nice bitter pine in the finish from the hops, adding a good finish to an otherwise sweet beer, giving it a good balance in the finish. I'm always shocked how smooth this beer drinks despite the 8% alcohol tag, cause the burn isn't there, it just leaves a nice warmth in my chest. This is a pumpkin beer I'll be saving till closer to Thanksgiving when I'm really going to want to warm up with something delicious.

The Bruery: Autumn Maple

Definitely the oddest of autumn beers I'll try this year, The Bruery's Autumn Maple is made with cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, molasses, vanilla, maple syrup, brains, people and who knows what else. Okay, not the last two, but you get the idea. This is a beer that is immediately rich with all sorts of smells, from strong smells of allspice and vanilla with a touch of funk in the nose. The beer itself pours a nice cloudy brown with a fluffy inch of head that dissipates pretty quickly. The taste is an assault that reminds me of some seriously cooked up sweet potato fries, with nice yammyness and rich molasses sweetness. The funk from the nose is there giving a nice tart twist to an otherwise deliciously sweet beer. Overall this is a beer that's worth opening with a friend and sitting back and enjoying something that's really worth enjoying, like It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown or The Big Lebowski. Either way it needs to be sipped and enjoyed.  

Anchor Brewing Company: Big Leaf Maple

Anchor Brewing Company was the first important microbrewery in the United States. In 1965 Frederick Louis Maytag III used his Maytag money to purchase a majority stake in Anchor Brewing, and spent almost six years learning how to brew and the importance of cleanliness when making beer. Maytag saved Anchor from going belly up and turned around the beer movement in California with their signature beer, Anchor Steam. However; in 2010 Maytag sold Anchor to two for Skyy Vodka executives who are hoping to keep Anchor Brewing alive with new styles and some new beers. Their new fall seasonal is Big Leaf Maple Red Ale, made with maple syrup produced from the aforementioned tree. Big Leaf Maple Trees are not the ideal source for maple syrup, as the taste is slightly different from other maple syrup and it takes almost thirty-five gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. But Anchor plowed ahead and pumped some maple syrup into this beer creating a nice sweet finish from an all together excellent beer.
Big Leaf Maple pours a beautiful amber with a nice but thin head. The smell is all strong, piney hops. The taste though is a nice blend of pine and caramel blended together beautifully. The beer sips very easily with consistent wash of bitter and sweet, with a dry finish that leaves a touch of sweet in the back of the throat. It's nice to get some hops in an Autumn beer after wave after wave of oktoberfests. Definitely coming back to this guy again soon.

Sam Adams: Ruby Mild

British Milds were once a huge style in England, being the common drink of the working class after a long day. Eventually, as WW1 and WW2 ravaged supplies in England, malted barley became harder and harder to come by, and the British Mild was replaced by the cheaper Pale Ale. The mild never truly recovered. Luckily, though sporadically, they’ve shown up on the shelves including Pretty Things making two last year and now Samuel Adams including a mild in their autumn mixed 12 pack. It’s nice to see the mild casually making it’s return to the beer scene, even though it’s just coming back with a whisper, it’s better than nothing.

Unlike its counterpart the pale ale, the mild has a much richer malt backbone. It really drinks a bit like a snickers bar, with sweet delicious caramel and nougat and a very pronounced bitter finish. The hops leave a nice lace of bitter flowers way in the back of the throat that only make the next sip equally refreshing as the one before it. Too bad it can only be had through the mixed 12 pack.

Harpoon: Octoberfest

Football season is here, and it’s about the closest celebration that America has to Octoberfest we have. Sit back, eat some artery clogging food and drinking copious amounts of beer. That’s why I’m glass Harpoon has decided to can it’s Octoberfest. Being able to crack a can of deliciousness and lose myself for the entire even is everything a man could ever want.

Harpoon’s Octoberfest fills that niche very nicely. In a nice sea of IPAs cracking this beer is completely different. Rich smell of toffee and caramel give way to an almost burnt caramel flavor. If there are hops in this beer I’m unaware of it and really just don’t care. It finishes smooth and crisply and doesn’t leave me feeling terribly full, which is excellent since I’m on #4 and still going strong. It might not be the best fest beer I’ve had in my life, but 12 pack cans make it one I’m going to drink more than most. Prost! 

Brooklyn: Post Road Pumpkin

Brooklyn Post Road Pumpkin is my first pumpkin beer of the new season. Brooklyn is, if nothing else, a consistently great brewery. Something about the water, or the yeast, or their very literary approach to making beer has always stood up to the test of time with them, and their Pumpkin beer holds up with the rest of their releases.

Post Road Pumpkin smells like nutmeg and clove. The smell gives way to a nice blend of sweet caramel with the aforementioned nutmeg and clove with a hint of cinnamon and pumpkin. The spice isn’t over offensive though, and actually gives a nice balance to the very minimal hops on the tongue. This is my idea of a good pumpkin beer and I’m glad it’s the first one I’m reviewing. It tastes like a beer that has some pumpkin pie in the background, not like a pumpkin pie milkshake. Truly one of the best pumpkin beers to start with. 

Mayflower: Autumn Wheat

It's not very often we get a dunkleweiss from an American brewer. Hefeweisses litter the shelves, especially in the spring and summer, but I love the deep wheat taste of a good dark wheat beer. A little richer, with more ripe fruit flavors and less banana, a good dunkleweiss just feels richer than it's lighter counterpart. It helps that one of the last beers I got to enjoy with my Dad was also a Mayflower Autumn Wheat Ale. 
Mayflower autumn wheat pours a deep amber and wafts up smells of roasted barley and toffee. The taste that follows is similar with some bitterness mixed in from the hops. The mouthfeel is very light but also a little light on the carbonation but it almost floats on the tounge. The bitter finish is a nice touch compared to some of it's German counterparts, definitely an American touch. Overall an excellent beer as I move into a new apartment. 

Hofbrauhaus Wolters: Fest-Bier

My first authentic German festbier is gonna be from Hofbrauhaus Wolters. The beer pours a nice amber color with a nice head that quickly fades. It leaves a decent ring of belgian lace around my stein. The smell is musty German pilsner and not much else. The taste is also mostly pilsner with a touch of sweet bread malt and very faint bitterness in the finish. I love the mustiness but it leaves a bit to be desired in the traditional marzen malty. This might be better than their traditional pilsner, but it's not my favorite for a fest bier, though I'd fill another stein with this guy.

Newport Storm; Oktoberfest

I'm gonna try and review a new fall beer every day from September 1st till Thanksgiving. That's 89 beers, and I'm gonna fail this experiment, but here we go. Somehow I've never had a Newport Storm beer before and I was given a bottle of their Oktoberfest marzen lager to try recently, so why not start here.
Newport Storm Oktoberfest pours a nice amber, filtered so it looks incredibly crisp in the light. It leaves very little head and the 14 IBU's worth of hops leave no belgian lace on the glass. But I'm not here for the hops, I'm here for the German tradition. This is a great example of the style with a nice smell of toasted caramel which carries over to the tongue. The taste is wonderful sweet bread with a nice crisp finish with no bitterness. The tartness of some Rick's Picks' Classic Sours adds an excellent balance to the deliciousness of this sweet beer and I highly recommend a pickle and beer pairing with this beer. First beer of my marathon review session started good with a beer I'll defiantly be drinking again.