Buffalo Bills Pumpkin Ale

Brewed by Buffalo Bills Brewery
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Hayward, California USA

It seems that the surfeit of pumpkin brews I imagined was merely a dream. Optimism has an irrepressible power to conjure more pleasant realities, and that’s exactly what happened when I opened up my refrigerator. Alas, only one pumpkin brew was left giving me precisely one more chance to have a more favorable pumpkin beer. It is harder than I thought to find the perfect pumpkin brew, but I can see a legitimate parallel between brewing with pumpkins and finding the perfect pumpkin to carve. Ever since I was born my family has frequented a local pumpkin patch, and every year we’d scour the field looking for the roundest, orangest, firmest pumpkin. Most of our efforts were in vain. We’d take home tall green ones, squatty brown ones and everything in between. But in failure lies a little charm, especially when it’s an unimportant failure. And maybe, if you squint, you can find a little something in Buffalo Bills lackluster Pumpkin Ale. It carries the colored insignia of all pumpkin brews. The Palisade peach red-orange color is a nice hue to gaze at while the cream colored head inflates, depresses then flattens out completely. The smell calls out with a quick shot of sour apple cider before unveiling a gentler aroma of mashed apples. Following this duo of apples incarnate is a dash of light vinegar, a sprinkling of raw pumpkin, some razor sharp clove and a heaping spoonful of brown sugar. It’s a beer that glides across the tongue with a lot less weight than it should. That and an un-enticing front line flavor of watered down vinegar make for a poor first impression. It then shifts to a yeast and bread flavor, with a passive element of raw pumpkin. It’s odd that this beer would stand out so far from others because of its natural flavor. Other brewers opted for the sweeter, pumpkin pie approach. Buffalo Bills takes the road less traveled and brings some of the dinner quality of pumpkin to the beer in a delightfully refreshing fashion. There’s more they could do to bring out this positive quality, but it’s a start. When the glass is empty and the scattered bits of lacing are sliding down the glass it feels like a satisfactory beer, but my expectations for a good pumpkin beer are so much higher. Much applause for the raw pumpkin elements, but no cheering until they really use its full potential.

Bottle. Poured with almost no head, a clear amber color. A spicy aroma of coriander and peppery pumpkin. A spicy pumpkin pie flavor with a lingering hoppiness and tate of pumpkin that stays in the mouth. A slight fizzy bite but a little oily overall.

Buffalo Bills was the first Pumpkin beer I sampled (I think it was 1993). Strong nutmeg/spice aroma in this "original" pumpkin amber ale. Malts and actual pumpkin are low compared to the level of spices though.

Bottle: Lots of clove in the nose is almost overpowering. Light nutmeg and cinnamon. Pours a transparent amber with a moderate fizzy off-white head that fades quickly. Flavor is loaded with clove right from the get go. Light cinnamon and nutmeg struggle to find their way thru. Light grassy bitter finish. No pumpkin is detectable with all the clove. This shuold be called Buffalo Bills Clove Ale. Fizzy mouthfeel.

Bottle. Strong, sweet, spicy aroma with ginger, coriander and some vegetal notes. Orange pour with a fizzy cream head. Taste is just straaange, mostly but not pleasantly spicy, with notes of cinnamon and and indeterminate sweet spice. Also nutmeg and allspice. Thin body, slightly fizzy. No real aftertaste. I am not a fan.

Brilliant orange with minimal off-white head, fades to nothing rather quickly. Aroma has all kinds of spice and not much else. Clove overwhelms the cinnamon and nutmeg. Flavor much the same, clove takes over everything. Some residuel sweetness. While it’s pretty one dimensional, don’t think it’s that bad. Fits the season well anyway.

I would call this Holiday Spice Ale and not Pumpkin ale. The Pumpkin flavor is totally overwhelmed by the spice mix. It really seems more like a spiced hard cider and not a beer at all - calling it an Amber style Ale is really misleading as it shares nothing with true Amber Ales It is very tart the pumpkin is present, but not in the starring role. Clean and orange colored. A little too carbonated as well. Interesting ale to share over Thanksgiving meal, but not much other uses for it.

pumpkin colored, nice lacing, decent head. too clear. very spicy aroma, some pumpkin. alcohol maybe. tastes bad. i thought i might like this. very flat palate, only positive there is a clean finish. no taste early on but then this awful spicy bitterness. i imagine mace pluse Pledge would taste like this potpouri bullshit.