New York: Pumking, Southern Tier, Lakewood

I hoard Christmas ales. Buying more than I open every year, building a surplus of aging 10% Yuletide bombs that I dip into after time does its job. Halloween beer? Not so much. There is something about Halloween that is less wistfully recalled, less of a build up and gone when it is done. Who plans for the pumpkin time?

The beer pours an orange amber with a whips of white froth and rim. On the nose there is a hearkening of clean barn from the malt and pumpkin flesh, the smell of carving the great damn gourd outside. It’s quite overwhelming of graham cracker, nutmeg, allspice and booze. In the mouth, there is more of that thick with cream. Rich. Rich enough to put you off but then it doesn’t cloy, its works its way in and then you wonder how it would age.

Plenty of BAer love.