Pumpkin Love

We had our official math department "Pumpkin Tasting" Friday Sept 19th. We sampled autumn themed snacks, cider and most importantly - a wide variety of pumpkin ales!

At 3 PM we scurried around assembling our snacks and organizing the tasting.

Steff made a very delicious pumpkin bread with cream cheese filling.

We organized our 13 different contestants with a detailed poster, listing the types and percent alcohol.

Let the tasting begin! We all sampled small amounts, paying attention to nose, color, front, middle, and finish. 

We individually rated each brew.

Although there was some variation in taste,we came up with two clear front runners and a clear third place.  First place goes to both  Weyerbacher Pumpkin Ale and Two Roads "Roadsmary Baby" (the later definitely wins best name!).

The imperial pumpkin ale by Weyerbacher was a rich strong brew with a good balanced pumpkin flavor. 

Roadsmary's Baby had a distinctive spiced taste with good carbonation.

Third place goes to Dogfish Head Punkin Ale. Another strong brew (7%) - a brown ale with strong pumpkin, brown sugar and spice flavors.

The full ranking is as follows (out of 40 total points - 8 tasters, scale is 1 to 5).

1st & 2nd  Roadsmary's Baby by Two Roads (6.8%)  27.8 points

3rd  Dogfish Head Punkin Ale (7%)  25.8 points

4th Wachusett Pumpkin (5.2%)  25 points

5th Blue Point Pumpkin Alg (6%) 21.1 points

6th Sam Adams Fat Jack Pumpkin Ale (8.5%) 19 points

7th Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale (6.35%) 18 points

8th Kentucky Pumpkin Barrel Ale (10%)  14.5 points 

9th  Woodchuck Hard Cider Private Reserve Pumpkin (6.9%) 14 points

10th Harpoon Imperial Pumpkin Ale (10.5%) 13.5 points

11th Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin (9%) 10.5 points

12th Sarnach Our Pumpkin Ale (5.4%) 9 points

13th Southern Tier Imperial Pumpkin Ale (8.6%) 7.75 points

A fun time was had by all, even though we are not professional tasters, it was interesting to see ther wide variety of pumpkin brews that have entered the fall market and all the interesting styles and tastes. 

Many thanks to our hard working tasters and support personnel. A special thanks to Matt & Steff for providing the brew samples, Jeff for his superior hotdogs and everyone for their snack contributions and general enthusiasm for this even. We missed you Alison.