Pumpkin Love Again

When visiting our son in upstate New York this past weekend (Sept 27-28) we visited the Fingerlakes Beverage Company and were astounded by all the brews they had. We noticed a bunch more pumpkin beverages and decided to do a "2014 pumpkin tasting part 2". We picked up 9 different brews.

We decided to do our tasting "flight style", where we poured 4 different types and tasted one at a time. We then could retaste any of those four in determining which was best for the round. 

Our first round had Post Road Pumpkin (Brooklyn 5%), Wolavers Organic Pumpkin Ale (5.35%), Wilhealm Scream Pumpkin Ale (Magic Hat 5.4%) and Captain Lawrence Pumpkin Ale (5.5%).

 At first taste we were leaning towards the Wilhealm Scream - it had a distinctive rich caramel taste but wasn't too sweet (as we found the Post Road to be). 

But in our "retasting" we found that the Wolavers edged ahead - the flavor really popped as the brew warmed a bit. The decision was the Wolavers would win this round. 

Our next round would include Harpoon UFO (unfiltered) pumpkin ale (5.9%), Hudson Valley Fall Hornin' Pumpkin (6%), and Ithaca Brewing Company Pumpkin Ale (6.3%). The later two had unimpressive flavor. The first was very well received - a nice balanced taste with good carbonation. 

Our final round was two heavier brews - Red Hook "Out of Your Gourd" Pumpkin Porter (5.8%) and Fisherman's Pumpkin Stout (7%). 

This was an interesting round. We found the Red Hook was quite heavy and stout-like with a smoky taste. The stout was lighter, more porter like and initially the flavor did not impress. But we found the stout did get better as it warmed up - but the porter won this round. 

Then we went back and revisited the winners of each round.

 After much discussion, it was decided that the Harpoon UFO pumpkin was the clear winner of this tasting.  This was a delicious brew that merits a second look and definitely would be purchased again by our tasters. Check out the particulars from the Harpoon brewery people. Harpoon Brewery

**a footnote - we had earlier tried a pumpkin ale at a local brew pub in Ithaca NY - Bandwagon Brew Pub Pumpkin Ale. It was excellent and we wish we had some to include in this tasting. It might have possibly edged out the UFO. It did have the advantage of being very fresh and on tap. It was delicious! We highly recommend a visit to this pub if you are in Ithaca. Bandwagon Brew Pub

Many thanks to Phil, Nick and Teodora for their tasting expertise in this tasting event. xo

More Pumpkin Love

Well I'm hosting a pumpkin tasting tomorrow (focus is on rating ales). So I'm making some pumpkin goodies too. And we have a breakfast tomorrow at work, so I'll making something pumpkiny for that.

First two ingredient pumpkin brownies. Well I added an extra ingredient.

Limited edition, bought at Target.

And I stole this recipe from cookies and cups. I used one family size box of Betty Crocker Dark Chocolate Brownie Mix (19.9 oz) and a can of Libby's Pure Pumpkin (15 oz).  Added about a half of a bag of the morsels.

Mix it up well so there are no dry bits. Line a 9 by 9 pan with foil and spray.  Smooth into pan.

Cook at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes.

I also made pumpkin butter last night.  See Easy Pumpkin Butter for the recipe. Which I'll make one of those baked brie in pastry and put the pumpkin butter on top of the brie (and inside the pastry) with salted pecans sprinkled on top.

And for breakfast tomorrow morning it will be BAKED PUMPKIN CREAM CHEESE FRENCH TOAST from the blog "Damn Delicious". I always find great recipes on her blog.

And I mostly followed her recipe. Just I used whole wheat cinnamon swirl bread by Pepperidge Farms (about 1 1/2 loaves), egg beaters instead of eggs, increased liquid ingredients a bit and whisked in about 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree in the liquid ingredients. I omitted the nuts since this is a faculty breakast. And it's going in the fridge overnight.  Here's a picture from the blog, I'll try to add my own picture too tomorrow!

update - the bread pudding was a success!  Here it as a few minutes after I put it out for the breakfast:

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.