Beer # 5 Post Road Pumpkin Ale

Been a little stuffy this week so I needed a strong beer to snap me out of it. When I indeed had realised I could taste again (Thanks to Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup: perennial elixir to runny noses everywhere) I went up to my local LCBO and stumbled across a lonely looking bottle of Post Road Pumpkin Ale in the section of outgoing seasonal beers. Making room for all the spicy, filling, and soul warming hearty winter ales, the staff had relegated this orphan to a corner for quick sale.

Pumpkin Ale is one of those funny beers that the Pint Jockey had avoided most of his life. After being weened on Labatt Blue, and 50, and wasting my mis-spent youth with Labatt Ice and the other frozen, dry, high alcohol, no taste, no character beers (anyone else remember Molson Naked?) I thought flavoured beers were just "wrong." Marketing ploys to ensnare women into drinking more beer. Real beer had hops in it and was "bitter," dry, and citrus. It wasn't until I started to delve into the history of beers that I realised hops were not always where it was at... in fact hops have only really been in beer for about 500 years, and were mainly employed as a preservative, not a flavouring agent. In fact cinnamon, corriander, cloves, anise and other such herbs and spices were flavouring beer for almost its entire 10,000 year run, so the relative newcommer hops has only been friends with beer for about 5% of it's life. So I thought... let's see what all the fuss was about.

Post Road is brought to us from the good people at Brooklyn Brewery, obviously in Brooklyn, New York. www.brooklynbrewery.com Now I have had the fortune to taste some of the Brooklyn beers and they are quite good. So I had high hopes for my little orphan when I brought him home. The bottle claims that the recipe is a modification of an 18th century recipe made with malted barley and roasted pumpkin just like the colonial Americans used to brew. The brew date was August so it had spent a at least three months in bottle. Poured coppery orange in the glass with a short tan to off white head with fine bubbles.

 The first sniff is ALL pumpkin pie, (you can almost smell leftover turkey) Spices dominate cloves, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, followed quickly by roasted pumpkin puree, and vanilla around the edges. Slight creaminess as well (whipped cream on top?).


The pumpkin disappears in the attack making room for the abundant spices. However, the finish is all roasted pumpkin balancing out the spiciness with a caramelised sweetness. Aeration brings out the ale aspect with the malted barley adding an undertone to the sweetness of the pumpkin. Cinnamon and clove carry on right to the end of the finish and linger in the mouth long after all of the other flavours have disappeared.

Taste: Pass
Cost: Pass ($2.50 per 355ml bottle)
Colour: Pass (reminiscent of pumpkins)
Beer Style: Pass
Re-order: Pass ( but Fail since it was the only bottle)
Experience: Pass


Now I'm still not a huge fan of spice ales but this one does do the trick. Probably best enjoyed once a year with that pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving (tip of the hat to our southern neighbours who are just about to celebrate their version of the holiday I'm thankful we get ours out of the way when BBQing is still a possibility).


Stay tuned later this week I have the 16 and 18 year old reserves of the Ola Dubh lurking in my fridge waiting to be blogged.


Cheers CJT