Ahh, Autumn... and Beer

Updated 29 Nov 2013

I'm so glad to be back on the East Coast an changing seasons.  My favorite season is autumn.  I love the crispness in the air, the trees changing color, and all the awesome butternut squash dishes at local restaurants.  I also love the ales of the season, and being close to Wegman's!

Back in Silverdale, if I wanted to try an assortment of new pumpkin ales, I would have to buy a six-pack of each.  Some were pretty nasty, and I poured out several bottles.

Here at Wegman's (awesomest grocery store on the planet!), you can mix-and-match your own six packs, and they have quite a wide variety of pumpkin ales to try.

Of course, if you happen to be in the Northern Virginia area, then I HIGHLY recommend going to Sweetwater Tavern both for their extraordinarily good food AND for their AWESOME pumpkin ale in the fall.  Take a growler to go! 

To help out those of you who AREN'T so conveniently located next to Sweetwater Tavern or a Wegman's, and in order to prevent you from having to buy whole six-packs of what might later get poured down the sink, here's my votes for the pumpkin ales on a thumbs-up / meh-so-so / thumbs-down rating scale.  I still have three more in the fridge to try, so I'll come back and add them to the list later, but for those of you who may be headed to the store soon and are looking for recommendations, here's what I've tried so far (listed in order from good to not-so-good):

New Holland Brewery's Ichabod - Two Thumbs-UP, still my favorite pumpkin ale.  Strong, bold and balanced flavor.  No weird initial or aftertastes.  I anxiously await its arrival on the shelves at Wegman's. 

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale - Thumb$ Up.  Quality and taste were very good - on-par with my favorite Ichabod listed above, but pricey.  It's very good if you don't mind spending the money on 4 bottles instead of a six-pack.

Sam Adams Harvest Pumpkin Ale - Thumbs-UP.  Sam Adams never disappoints with their seasonal ales.  Good flavor, not too strong, very enjoyable.








 

Red Hook Pumpkin Porter - Thumbs-UP.  Very tasty.  Didn't taste very much like pumpkin, but I still enjoyed it.  I'd buy it again.

Devil's Backbone Ichabod - Thumbs-UP.  Like the Red Hook, it didn't have a strong pumpkin flavor, but it was still very enjoyable.  I'd buy it again.

Traveler Jack-O Shandy - Thumbs-UP.  Added 13 Oct 2013, I liked this one a lot.  It was light and crisp, with a good balance between the lemon peel and pumpkin flavors.  There weren't any strong perfumy or heavy-spice flavors.  There weren't any detectable hops flavors either.  I bought this one as a mixed-up six-pack from Wegmans, but I enjoyed it enough that I went back and bought another full six-pack of this.

Saranac Pumpkin Ale - Thumbs-UP.  Flavor was good, although it did leave a slight after-taste.  I wouldn't turn away a bottle if offered, but if going to buy a six-pack for home, I'd look for one of the others listed above.

Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale - Thumbs-UP.  Added 13 Oct 2013.  The flavor in this one was pretty strong.  If you're not a pumpkin ale fan, then I would steer clear of this one.  It wasn't overpoweringly perfumy or spice-flavored, so I actually enjoyed it and finished the bottle.  Not much hops either.  Like the Saranac above, I wouldn't turn away a bottle if offered, and if you're picking out a mixed-up six-pack at someplace like Wegman's, then I'd include this in your sampler six pack.  Given how strong the flavor is, I'd be cautious about buying a full six-pack if you haven't tried it first.


 

Southern Tier - Imperial Pumpking Ale - Thumbs-Up.  Added 7 Nov 2013.  Very strong, nutty flavor, but not perfumy like some of the others.  Like the Weyerbacher, if you're not a pumpkin ale fan, then I would steer clear of this one.  Very light on the hops / not a strong hoppy flavor.  I enjoyed it though and finished the bottle.  It has a pretty high alcohol content - 8.9% by volume. 

Post Road Pumpkin Ale - Tough call.  Heavy hops, and I'm not a big fan of hoppy-beers.  If you like hops, you should probably give this a try.  As for me, I won't be going back for this one.  Also, flavor was better when I first opened the bottle.  As I got toward the bottom of the bottle, the taste of the pumpkin spices got pretty strong.  

Blue Moon Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale - well...  not so much.  Although it has a picture of a pumpkin on the label and says "pumpkin" in small letters under the BIG "HARVEST MOON" label, there's no detectable taste of pumpkin here.  Now, that being said, it was a pretty tasty, standard Oktoberfest type of beer, so I listed it here above some of the "meh" rated beers with weird tastes.





Harpoon's Pumpkin UFO (unfiltered offering) -  Meh.  It was okay.  I finished the bottle at least, but tasted pretty perfumy.  Given the choice of other pumpkin ales on the shelf, I'd skip probably skip this one.

Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale.  Meh.  Fairly light in body. Definitely pumpkin flavored. Tasted a little weird but nothing I could put my finger on. Not something I'd rave about or buy again.



 




New Belgium Pump-Kick.  Meh.  Odd flavor.  It says something about pumpkin and cranberry on the label.  I finished the bottle, but I won't be going back for any more of this one.




 

Shipyard Pumpkinhead - Yech!  Thumbs-DOWN.  It has an amaretto taste to it, and I HATE amaretto.  That being said, if YOU like amaretto, then you might want to give it a try.








Elysian Night Owl Pumpkin Ale - Yech!  Thumbs-DOWN.  Waaaaay too perfumy and overpowering strong flavors.  I couldn't take more than a couple of sips.  Poured the rest of the bottle down the sink.  Poured the rest of the six-pack down the drain, too. 

Shock Top Pumpkin Wheat - Yech!  Thumbs-DOWN.  Similar to the Elysian - too perfumy and very strong flavor.  I did manage to finish about half a bottle of this before I gave up.  I poured the rest of the six pack down the drain. 

Jacques Au Lantern - Blech!  Thumbs-DOWN.  After one sip of this, I poured the rest of the bottle down the kitchen sink.  Like the Elysian and Shock Top - very perfumy and STRONG flavor.

Autumn Update

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving.  We had a terrific Thanksgiving dinner with a large group of friends from our church. 

My posting has been pretty light because I haven't had much free time the past few months.  Since September, I have been attending a three-month long school at the Washington Navy Yard.  Most of my classmates are here as geo-bachelors away from their families, so while I haven't had much free time, I am thankful that I live here in the DC area and get to go home to my family every night and spend time with them on the weekends.

I love autumn.  It's my favorite time of year.  I love the trees changing colors.  I love the chill in the air that warns of the approaching winter.  I love the flavors of the seasonal dishes at local restaurants. 

For our anniversary in October, my wife and I had an extraordinary dinner at the Parallel Wine Bistro right here in Ashburn.  They mostly serve small tapas-style dishes, but they have a few normal entrees, too.  I had the pork with apples and cream sauce and it was heavenly. 

In November, I attended the Veteran's Day assembly at my boys' school and then went and had an awesome lunch at Clyde's with my wonderful wife.  I had the potato leek soup and butternut squash ravioli, and they were to-die-for. 

Full House at the Veteran's Day Assembly

We've had a couple of fun outings with the Cub Scouts this fall. 

First, I went with my elder son's Webelos Cub Scout den to visit the Rust Sanctuary in Leesburg, VA.  It was a beautiful park, and Ty, the naturalist who led our excursion around the park, did a superb job of teaching the boys and keeping them involved and engaged in the subject matter. 

Naturalist Ty showing the boys a ginormous earth worm.

We lifted up stumps and identified the critters underneath.

We went for a hike around the property.

Spotted some beautiful (although deadly) mushrooms.

Spent some time by the pond.

If I just stay really still, then 

the people won't see me here.

Next, I went with my younger son's Tiger Cub Scout den to visit the Heritage Farm Museum over at Claude Moore Park in Sterling, VA.
 

Our guide at the Heritage Farm was also excellent.  She did great with the kids.  In the picture above, she had the boys line up like they were a team of horses, and then she taught them some basic commands that farmers would use to get their horses to move or stop or turn, and she used those terms to lead us around the museum.

Explaining how a plow works.

Milking the cow.

Gathering the eggs.

I enjoyed taking the boys trick-or-treating this year.  It was fun to watch them sort their candy afterwards.

I can't imagine where they got such anal-retentive organizational obsession.  (sarcasm)

It's cool to watch my boys grow and develop their own personalities and interests.  This year, my younger son decided he wanted to take up baseball.  This surprised us to no end because nobody in our family is very athletic or into sports, but I really enjoyed going to watch YB's baseball games on Saturday mornings.

Go Grasshoppers!

My elder son continues to enjoy fencing epee with the Have Blade Will Travel fencing club.  Last weekend I went to watch him fence in a scrimmage at Claude Moore Park.  It had been a while since I had seen him fence, because he normally goes to fencing while I'm still at school.  I could tell he had improved tremendously since the last time I watched him.  His coach says he's doing a great job and will do much better when he grows a little more.

Touche!

(That's ES on the right.)

Then of course, there are the leaves, leaves, and more leaves.  The past two weekends in a row we have raked leaves, and looking out my window now, you would never have guess we did ANY raking this season.

But I still love autumn.  :-)

Milestones: Get a Rake

I know I keep saying how much I love autumn.

Raking leaves? Not so much.

Flashback - yes, yes, I know I said last year I didn't mind raking the leaves, but we had just moved back from Hawaii so it was a novelty.

This is just one of those cases in life where you've gotta take the good with the bad. Good = Beautiful red, orange, and yellow leaves on trees, pumpkins, that slight chill in the air that nips at your cheeks, and a nice cup of hot apple cider. Bad = Heaps of dead brown leaves a foot deep across every square inch of yard you own and won't just go away no matter how hard you ignore them.

I've been looking forward to the day when the boys would be old enough to start picking up some of chores around the house. First, I was surprised in the spring when 8 year old ES offered to mow the lawn for 50 cents.

Just yesterday, ES and his neighborhood friend P offered to rake the leaves in our yard for a dollar. They drive a hard bargain don't they? Actually, the conversation with ES was something more like this:

Excited ES: "Mommy, Mommy! P said I could have 30 cents if I help him rake the leaves in the yard!"

LW: "What's P getting out of this deal?"

ES: "P said he's charging people a dollar to rake their leaves."

ES's grandma says P is a modern-day Eddie Haskell.

Anyway, we agreed to pay their outrageous price of $1 for them to rake the leaves. Much to my surprise, they didn't do a half-bad job.

ES raking leaves.

Unfortunately, I didn't read the fine print on the contract. Oh wait... there was no contract. It was a purely verbal agreement, and apparently there was something lost in translation. Just in case any of you readers find yourselves being extorted by 8 year-olds, here's a translation guide for you.

When they say: "Will you pay us $1 to rake your leaves?"

They actually mean: "Will you pay us $1 to rake the leaves just in this 20 foot by 20 foot patch of the front yard before we go to the next-door neighbor's house and get them to pay us $1 to rake only one-sixteenth of the total yard area of their yard and then move on to the next house and so on and so forth?"

When ES came in to tell me he was "done" and asked for his $1, I went outside to inspect their work.

Me: "What about the sides of the house?"

P: "We don't do sideyards."

Me: "What about the back yard?"

P: "We don't do backyards. Front yards only."

Me: "What about the front yard portion on the OTHER side of the driveway over there?"

P: "No, we don't do those either."

For a minute there, I thought maybe in his quest to read every book in our house, ES read the chapter of my social psychology textbook on sales tactics and low-balling. They got me to agree to the lowball offer of $1 to start the job, and now they need more money to finish the job. So I offered to pay them another dollar if they raked the back yard, too, but they were already packing up their gear and moving on to the neighbor's house.

Oh well. Chalk this one up to you-get-what-you-pay-for.

Pumpkin Ale Pass-In-Review

I've mentioned once or twice that I love autumn.

For our anniversary dinner, my wonderful wife and I got to go to Clyde's. We love Clyde's regardless of the time of year. However, autumn is especially awesome at Clyde's. I love having things like acorn squash soup (it was sooooo good!) and spiced pumpkin salad ("apple smoked bacon, pumpkin seeds, caramelized onions, spinach, frisée, radicchio and pumpkin vinaigrette.") My only disappointment there was they put pancetta on our salad instead of apple smoked bacon, and the flavor of the pancetta was a little too strong for me, so I picked it off. Aside from that though, the salad was fantastic. Anyway, I digress. The whole point of this post is really autumn BEER.

One of our favorite restaurants in NoVA is the Sweetwater Tavern in Sterling. They have a micro-brewery right there in the restaurant and have AWESOME brew and food that's just to-die-for. This time of year at Sweetwater, you can get the Ghost Town Pumpkin Ale ("a lightly spiced amber ale made with real pumpkin...available with brown sugar and pumpkin spice garnish.") They sell growlers that you can take beer home with you, too. If you buy a growler of their pumpkin ale, they even give you a little ziplock bag of the brown sugar and pumpkin spice garnish to put on the rim of your beer mug at home. I love it! :-9

I wish we could afford to go to Sweetwater Tavern for dinner every night... and that we had our own personal driver so both my wife and I could enjoy their awesome brews every night... and that we had an extra couple of hours in each day and a personal trainer to help us work off the resultant beer gut... but alas, it is not to be.

So Saturday we were at Wegman's for lunch. I love Wegman's food court. Whenever it seems like none of us in our family can agree on what to have for lunch, there's always the Wegman's food court. I can get the exotic international flavors I want like Indian food or sushi or Thai food, my wife can get whatever suits her fancy (which will NOT be anything anywhere NEAR the Indian, sushi, or Thai counters), and my kids can get their staple pizza or chicken nuggets.

Sorry, I'm digressing onto food again. Stay on target.

In Wegman's they had a big display set up with over half a dozen different varieties of pumpkin ale. As we sat on the balcony eating our lunch, I thought to myself, "Self, you should do a taste test and figure out which is the best bottled pumpkin ale down there." So before we left, I bought a few varieties of the pumpkin ales to try out.

Actually, I bought all but two. I did NOT buy any of the Dogfish Head Punkin Ale or the Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale. I know you're thinking to yourself, "Self, why didn't he buy any Dogfish or Weyerbacher?" I'm glad you asked. Somebody at those two companies needs to go take some classes on marketing because otherwise their companies are going to fail miserably.

The Dogfish and Weyerbacher pumpkin ales were sold in 4-packs. When I first walked up to the display, I immediately picked those two up as my first two choices. I liked that I could get a 4 pack and try it out and not have to work my way through a full 6-pack if I didn't really like it.

Then I looked at the price.

Both the Dogfish and the Weyerbacher pumpkin ales were $10 for a 4-pack, so $2.50 per bottle. ALL of the other pumpkin ales in the display were $9 for a 6-pack, so $1.50 per bottle.

Cha-ching! Cha-ching!

Dogfish and Weyerbacher both came out of the shopping cart and back onto the display.

I did get five others to try though, so here for my 5 or so loyal readers who like beer are my thoughts and impressions of the five pumpkin ales I tried out this week. These comments were written in the order I drank them - NOT all in one night mind you!


Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale
(Portsmouth, New Hampshire)

Meh. Fairly light in body. Definitely pumpkin flavored. Tasted a little weird but nothing I could put my finger on. Not something I'd rave about or buy again.






Blue Moon Brewery's
Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale
(Golden, Colorado)

I took a sip expecting pumpkin flavor. After all, it's got a painting of a pumpkin on the bottle, and it was being sold in amongst half a dozen other pumpkin ales. I detected no essence of pumpkin in this. I re-examined the bottle and at first I couldn't even find the word "pumpkin" on the bottle. I looked a little closer and saw under the BIG words "HARVEST MOON" there is the fine print "pumpkin ale." In any case, it was just okay. I thought it tasted more like Sam Adam's Octoberfest than a pumpkin ale. It was better than the Smuttynose, but again it was nothing that I'd rave about or race out to buy again.

Random Aside about Brewery Websites:

Is it just me, or is there absolutely NO POINT in putting a thing on your website that asks for your birthdate before you can view the website??? That just seems totally useless to me. I could enter any date I want that shows that I'm 21 years old and go on in and browse the website. It's not like it's allowing me to purchase alcohol without proof of ID. It's JUST a WEBSITE. How does putting something like that on your website prevent anybody from accessing the website???

I have this nagging feeling in the back of my head that it has something to do with frivolous lawsuits. I wonder what brewery got sued because some underage kids were viewing the website, and that somehow encouraged them to buy beer under age, and somehow that's the brewery's fault because they didn't ask the kids' age before they viewed the website, so just like the McDonald's-coffee-is-hot lady, some idiot is a millionaire from suing some poor brewery, so now they all have to put some silly widget on their website that asks you to enter your birth date.

Wait... Do I need to put one of those birthdate checker widgets on this blog post? OH MY GOD WHAT IF SOMEONE UNDER 21 IS READING THIS BLOG POST!?!?

Okay, getting off my soapbox now...

Shipyard Pumpkinhead
(Portland, Maine)

The initial taste was like almonds or amaretto. BLECH! I HATE amaretto or anything almond flavored. (Aside: I especially hate almond-smelling soap in public restrooms - it drives me nuts!) After I got over the initial amaretto taste, it actually tasted pretty good. The amaretto flavor wasn't so overpowering that I couldn't finish the bottle. Still, not something that I would seek out again in future beer-purchasing trips to the grocery store.



New Holland Brewery Ichabod
(Holland, Michigan)

The best so far in this taste testing. No weird initial or aftertastes. Strong, bold and balanced flavor. I could go for another one of these right now. I'll seek this one out next time I go to the store to buy beer. Still one more beer to try though...





Brooklyn Brewery
Post Road Pumpkin Ale
(Brooklyn, NY)

This brew had the most hops out of any of the five pumpkin ales I tested. I'm not a big fan of hops, but they weren't unbearable and this Post Road Pumpkin Ale was otherwise pretty bold and flavorful. I'd say it was pretty tasty for about the first two thirds of the bottle. As I got to the bottom of the bottle though, the taste of the pumpkin spices got to be overbearing. It might be a good idea to store prone or upside down to help keep the spices more evenly distributed in the bottle when you turn it up to open and drink.


In the end, the hands-down winner of Blunoz's Pumpkin Ale Taste Test was:

New Holland ICHABOD

I really liked the flavor of the Ichabod and the fact that the hops weren't overpowering. The runner-up award goes to the Post Road Pumpkin Ale. Both Ichabod and Post Road Pumpkin Ale were good enough that I would seek them out in the store and buy them again. The other three - meh, I wouldn't bother.

Rewind back up the page a bit. Has anyone tried the Dogfish Head or the Weyerbacher? Are either of them good enough to justify the extra expense? It's NOT that I'm a total cheapskate. I am willing to pay extra for something if I know it's worth it. Standing there in Wegman's looking at the variety of pumpkin ales to try, I was already looking at buying FIVE of them, so it was an easy-on-the-wallet decision to not buy those two. If someone tells me they're THAT good that I should try one or both of them, then I will.

Update 11/10/2009: Alright, someone recommended the Dogfish Head Punkin Ale, so I decided to give it a shot. It was really good. Strong, bold flavor with just a hint of pumpkin and not a lot of hops. I liked it a lot. However (comma), it was right on par with Ichabod. While it was an enjoyable brew and I will certainly enjoy drinking the rest of the 4-pack, I don't think it's worth the extra dollar per bottle. Long term, I'd go with Ichabod which is just as good but not as expensive.

Mayne's Tree Farm

On Monday, some friends of ours from church invited us to join their family tradition of going to Mayne's Tree Farm to go for a hay ride and pick out pumpkins. Mayne's is in a small but adorable town called Buckeystown, Maryland not far from Frederick.

We were really impressed with Mayne's. It was a truly enjoyable experience. It's out in a very rural area and isn't at all commercialized.

Right after we pulled into the parking lot, the farmer brought out the John Deere tractor pulling a trailer with some hay bales on it. We all climbed on board and enjoyed the ride out to the pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins.



We told the boys the same rule as the family who invited us - they each got to pick one pumpkin, and they could pick any pumpkin they wanted as long as they could carry it.

I picked one out, too.

Pumpkin Self-Defense

The boys bent the rules a bit and decided that their stuffed animals should each get a pumpkin, too.

Lotis and his pumpkin

Teddy and his pumpkin

Weighing-In and Paying-Up

After we finished at Mayne's Tree Farm, we had an awesome lunch at a pizza place just north of Buckeystown. Then we did some sight seeing around the Maryland countryside on our way back home.

The farmland up there is beautiful.

I love autumn.

We took White's Ferry back across the Potomac north of Leesburg, Virginia. Then we stopped at a few Loudon County vineyards to do some wine-tasting. There were some gorgeous flowers out in front of the Lost Creek and Hidden Creek vineyards.

Overall, it was a wonderful autumn day out in the country with my family. If you're in the DC area and looking for a nice day's outing to pick up some pumpkins with your family, then I highly recommend Mayne's Tree Farm.

REMINDER: THIS WEEKEND is the Loudoun County Fall Color Tour! Click on the link for a map and list of participating farms and what they will be offering.