Jolly Pumpkin Bière de Mars

Brewed by Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales
Style: Bière de Garde
Dexter, Michigan USA

We start with the standard tart aroma of a Jolly Pumpkin beer. This pours a reddish amber, with a fluffy off-white head. Nice tart aroma, with hints of vanilla, and roast in the background. Nice and light on the palate. A very drinkable beer.

This beer was weird for me. Poured a cherry brown color, with a sour funky smell. Remember those giant chewy SweetTarts, that came 3 in a pack? This beer tastes like the red one.

Rich copper orange body, thick beige head, very effervescent. Fruity sour funky JP aroma, toffee, wood. Flavor: sour, winey, wood, grapey, tannins. Quite deft in body. Very unique flavor for an american beer, and easily one of JP’s better ones.

Beautiful deep cherry color, translucent near the bottom and becoming darker near the thick, creamy head. Oak on the nose, with huge Belgian floral notes coming through with the first sip. Lots of sourness, with cherry, bitter unripened peach, ans spice in the background.

750 ml bottle. Batch #256. Pours a mahogany brown with a tall off white head that fades down quickly. Aroma is really nice. Lots of oak, barnyard, cherries, touch of spice. I’m surprised by the tartness of the flavors. Oak, apples, cherries, cherry pits, with an earthy oak finish that dries out nicely. This is really refreshing. I’m really surprised by this one, another great JP. And that label is pretty sweet too.

A nice reddish-brown body with a quickly diminshing white head. Aroma is lightly spicy, somewhat like a Lambic wiht a slight hop accent. Taste is sour accented, with an oak accent citrus taste. Ending is again oaked citrus, with a light effervescent quality.

Usually I like the Jolly Pumpkin, but mixed feelings about this. First off, i do not dig the smell. Its very strong so it gets a few points there, but its not good so it loses most of them. Too fruity. Very tart and sour for such a dark beer, I can definetly taste the oak aging and the yeast.As always for beers like this, its too sweet for my palate but I can appreciate the beer nonetheless.

Second in our Jolly Pumpkin diptych, I was surprised to find a striking similarity between La Roja and Bière de Mars. Suggesting the weathered planks of a ship, the body glows of a deep orange under a brumous cream-colored head. The nose is what veritably likens the two beers. The matching funkiness implies a strong influence from the barrels that may be masking their individuality. Still, I found the Bière de Mars less tight, showing more banana and green apple, as well as nutmeg, allspice and brown sugar. The mouthfeel is dry and aggressively carbonated, which sadly erodes some of the flavor. Red apple, blueberries and a leathery sourness are welcome tonalities, however. I preferred La Roja for its kinder texture and affable mascot. (20/05/07)