Greenport Harbor Leaf Pile Pumpkin Ale

Brewed by Greenport Harbor Brewing Co.
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Greenport, New York USA

Growler fill from Big Z in Huntington. Pours a deep reddish-amber with a small but lingering white head. Aroma is heavy on cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, though pumpkin and malt are also detectable. Taste is a sublime graham cracker/cinnamon characteristic up front, with caramel, allspice, nutmeg, and finally an ever-so-slight pumpkin aftertaste. Beer is smooth, alcohol barely detectable. It’s not the best pumpkin I’ve ever had, but it’s one of the best. A damn good offering and one that leaves me very excited for this new addition to Long Island’s brewing scene.

Tap. Aroma big on the pumpkin and the spices with caramel malt there as well. Flavor again a nice display of the pumpkin flavor, better than most pumpkin ales to me, along with solid pie-spicing, though falls short on the pie-crust aspect. Still, a somewhat different (as different as it can be) and tasty take on the pumpkin.

On tap at the brewery. Pours dark orange with a creamy white head. Aroma of pumpkin, cinnamon, allspice, and gingerbread. On my first sip, my immediate impression was that this was an awesome pumpkin beer--lots of gingersnap, graham cracker, and pumpkin spices. But as the beer warmed and I continued to drink, it got sweeter and stickier with more emphasis on the allspice/pumpkin spices and less emphasis on the graham cracker. So overall, I am not sure what to think of this beer but I suppose that it is one of the better pumpkin ales out there and I would like to try this again and see if my impressions change. 7/4/8/4/14 [3.6/5]

The brewery poured this for me while I was picking up a 1/2 barrel of the Black Duck Porter. I shared the growler with friends at Bellport Beer and a few customers too. I liked the strong pumpkin-spice taste that was creamy like Cappuccino and the first aromas were very inviting. I couldn’t tell what the abv was, but the medium to light bodied ale was very easy to drink. Having tasted a few other pumpkin ales this week, I was impressed with the quality of this one. It has more of the nutmeg and cinnamon spices to it than most other Pumpkin ales.

Growler filled at the brewery and consumed the next day. Pours a mostly clear deep orange amber with a moderate tan head that lasted through the first two sips and left just a bit of lace. The aroma is predominantly spice, although there is some mild malt and pumpkin present in the nose as well. The individual spices are difficult to discern (at least for me) with the exception of cinnamon. The flavor is again mild malt and very light pumpkin with a strong dose of spice. The spices are easier to identify in the flavor with cinnamon, cloves and cardomom all present. This beer is much more about the spices as opposed to the pumpkin, which is very much in the back seat. Reminds me a little bit of spice cookies. Very light bitterness at the finish. Medium bodied. Another solid offering from Greenport.