Jolly Pumpkin JIpar

Brewed by Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales
Style: Belgian Ale
Dexter, Michigan USA

Draft sample at MBGF Summer09. Poured a cloudy orange color with an average frothy off-white head that mostly lasted with good lacing. Moderate to heavy yeast, sour citrus and juniper aroma. Medium body with a sticky texture and flat carbonation. Medium to heavy sour & sweet flavor with a medium sweet & sour finish of moderate duration. This is a standout complex beer and a good change of pace for this brewer.

MiBG Summer Fest 2009, 1st beer of the Saturday session: Hazy deep golden hue with very good frothy head. The aroma has notes of juniper berry and cloves, cherry pits, oak, grainy and crystal malts, and grassy hops. The taste is twangy and spicy with woody and grassy notes. Light grains and yeasty tones leads me to a weird sea like finish, not salty, sea weedy iodine nor fishy but a combination of all of it. STRANGE? The mouth feel is lively and crisp but seems a tad watery too. Very different and hard to put my head around it all.

On tap at the MBGSF 09. Poured an amber color. Aroma is super earthy, grassy hops and a touch of funk. Taste is much the same, punchy dry hops in the middle with a touch of funk on the finish. This one was interesting for sure, and nice to try a JP ipa, but overall didn’t quite come together for me.

Shared this with MereLikesBeer at the Michigan brew fest. It was incredibly grassy definitely not their best brew. In fact, I would say this is my least favorite out of all of th JP stuff that I’ve had. But JP is a great brewer. Cheers!

Tap at the MBG Summer Festival. Poured a cloudy peach color with a beige head. Aroma was light with some sour and oak notes. Flavor seemed a bit watered down but there were fruit notes, especially grape fruit and some yeasty notes as well. I want to try this again to see if the flavor still seems watered down.

On tap at MBGSF 09. Cloudy orange with medium to small beige head. Aroma is slight oak and Jolly Pumpkin house aroma. Flavor is same oak and Jolly Pumpkin yeast and some fruit, very dry. Medium to light body with active carbonation. An obvious Jolly Pumpkin beer.

I tried this beer at MBGSF 09. Generally I am a big fan of Jolly, however I wasn’t totally blown away with this beverage - it wasn’t bad, but just not wonderful. It poured a hazy light amber color with little to no head. It’s aroma was unremarkable, not strong at all and didn’t have the usual oaky aroma one gets from the Jolly beers. It did smell a little herbal. Taste was incredibly grassy. I got more and more of a grassy taste as I drank more of the beer. A decent brew, glad I tried it!