I love seasonal offerings. It’s the cycle of things that
keeps me coming back. Whether it’s summer ale, nice warm winter ale, or the
fall specialties…like pumpkin ale. They all keep us looking forward to the
changing of the seasons. In pumpkin ales, you get a truly earthy feel, with
which you can pretty much taste an organic flavoring that is rarely present in
your average ales. There is just something earthy about really good pumpkin ales.
The problem is though…it is rarely achieved. I’ve found that what you wind up
with most of the time is a hastily put together attempt at a quality pumpkin
brew. Today, we’re checking out what The Brooklyn Brewery has to offer in
pumpkin brews. The Brooklyn Brewery is well known for beautifully made
beer…let’s see if they can pull it off and make Jack the Pumpkin King proud.
Here’s what the web had to say:
THE BEER:
Early American colonialists, seeking natural ingredients for
brewing ales, turned to pumpkins, which were plentiful, flavorful and
nutritious. Blended with barley malt, pumpkins became a commonly used beer
ingredient. Post Road Pumpkin Ale brings back this tasty tradition. Hundreds of
pounds of pumpkins are blended into the mash of each batch, creating a beer
with an orange amber color, warm pumpkin aroma, biscuity malt center, and crisp
finish.
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| Jack The Pumpkin King |
Style: Genuine Pumpkin Ale
Malts: American Two-row malt, British Crystal Malt, Belgian
Biscuit and Aromatic Malts
Additions: Dickinson pumpkins, and nutmeg; Contains wheat
Hops: Willamette and American Fuggle
Alcohol by Volume: 5.0%
IBUs: 24
Original Gravity: 13.5° Plato
Calories: 165
Food Pairings: The perfect beer for holiday dining, roasted
ham and turkey, root vegetables, macaroni and cheese, Thanksgiving dinner.
Availability: August-November
Format: 15.5 gal kegs; 5.2 gal kegs; 24/12oz bottles
THE BREWERY:
Brooklyn Brewery makes beer. Good beer. Not only does it
taste good and make your meal better but we like to think that since its
founding in 1988, Brooklyn Brewery has brewed flavorful beers that enrich the
life, tradition and culture of the communities it serves. Its award-winning
roster of year-round, seasonal and specialty beers have gained the Brewery
notoriety as one of the top craft beer producers in the world. While striving
to brew the best beer possible (and make time for our growing families), The
Brewery promotes the proliferation of good beer and good food whenever it can.
Brooklyn beers are currently distributed in 25 states and 20 countries.
Throughout 2011 The Brewery underwent an expansion that will double overall
capacity in 2012 and quintuple by 2013. Brooklyn Brewery probably exports more
beer than any other American craft brewery.
 |
| The Brooklyn Brewery |
The leaders of Brooklyn Brewery have also led the industry
in publishing. Brewmaster Garrett Oliver, widely acknowledged as the world’s
foremost scholar on beer, wrote The Brewmaster’s Table: Discovering The
Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food in 2003. The book was firmly established
as the first and final word on beer and food pairings in addition to being an
entertaining guide to the world’s best beers and breweries. In 2005,
Co-Founders Steve Hindy and Tom Potter wrote Beer School. Beer School’s real
world stories about starting a brewery from scratch continues to inspire
entrepreneurs today. The Brewmaster's Table is reportedly selling for about a
dollar more than Beer School on amazon.com and that does not bother Steve. More recently, in 2011, Garrett acted
as the editor-in-chief of the comprehensive Oxford Companion To Beer.
Essentially a beer encyclopedia, the book documents everything from malt
disease to beer clubs to the ancient process of bottle re-fermentation.
In addition to facilitating community meetings at its
Tasting Room, brewery employees serve on not-for-profit boards, including the
Prospect Park Alliance, the Open Space Alliance, Transportation Alternatives
and the Brooklyn Historical Society. Each year the company supports many
charitable and arts organizations including BAM, Brooklyn Museum and MoMA, and
partners with food purveyors across the country to produce beer dinners and
tasting events.
The Brewery is open to the public Monday-Thursday from 5-7pm
for reservation-only Small Batch tours, Friday evening for Happy Hour, and
Saturdays and Sundays for Tours and Tastings. For more mind-blowing Brooklyn
Brewery fodder go to facebook.com/thebrooklynbrewery, follow @BrooklynBrewery
on Twitter, and treat your eyes to some videos.
THE WEBSITE:
THE REVIEW:
Of all the breweries that have impressed me on the East
Coast, the Brooklyn Brewery stands alone. They’re not necessarily artsy, or
avant-garde. But what they do is make outstanding beer. It’s crisp, clean, beautifully
flavored, and full-bodied. All of these attributes describe Post Road. It is a
wonderfully put together brew. The pour was fantastic, producing a vibrant,
flavorful head. As for the flavor, you do indeed taste just the right hint of
pumpkin, but not in an overpowering way. It is truly the best pumpkin ale that
I have ever had the pleasure of tasting.
RATING:
8.5/10 - Great
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