Jolly Pumpkin Luciernaga (The Firefly)

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

Deep golden-orange beer with a thick pillowy white head. Very moussy and sticky lacing. Aroma is fantastic... musky, purfumey aroma with rich bretty funk, a kiss of vanilla, citrus and some nice earthy hops. Some apple/pear fruitiness with some apple-skin-like tannic character. Spicy flavour, lightly peppery with a lovely pear ester character. Some earthy/spicy hops, soft bitterness. Creamy palate. Leathery dryness with a lovely perfumy aroma. Excellent balance and a fantastic beer.

The pour is very light orange with a little brown. The head is very thick, creamy, frothy, off white. The aroma is fruity, tart, acidic, hops, alcohol, yeast, and some spice. The flavor is spicy, citrusy, some fruit, tart, acidic, yeasty, and most of the qualities of the aroma. Very spicy. nicely carbonated palate.

The nose is both tart and spicy with scents of corriander, allspice, clove, tart clementine and lemon. In the mouth it is very smooth and sexy with a silky finish. Soft but deep in the midpalate with some dryness at the very end of the finish.

75 cl bottle. Orange color, pours an enormous frothy head. Strong aroma of citrus(lemon and grapefruit) and coreander, combined with other nondescript spices. Bitter, spicy flavor with grapefruit and coreander notes. Well made beer with a strong aroma, maybe a bit too spicy.

The smell is something I just can’t put a finger on. Is it cranberries, as Joris pointed out in his review? Or is it something else? Whatever the hell it is, it’s great. Even my girlfriend kept smelling it, and she doesn’t drink beer. Super acidic brett in the nose, with backing fruity sweet malts. The taste is less in your face brett as the aroma, and more of a balanced, Orval kinda thing. And I like it. Sweet caramel and almost-plum malts sit beneath spicy, citrusy, floral hops, with a beautiful, barely acidic green apple finish. Now for my 2 complaints. 1 - It’s a gusher. Beware. Half my bottle blew up all over the kitchen. And it just kept going, I had to get 3 glasses. 2 - The mouthfeel. Weak and flat. C’mon! To have such a beautiful beer be almost ruined by being too thin is a damn shame. Regardless, I love this brewery and all their products. Best Belgian themed brewery in America. This is not their best brew, but nothing they do is bad. EDIT: Ok, after I added some of the dregs from the bottom of the bottle, the brett character in the flavor, as well as the mouthfeel, both greatly improved. What a phenomenal beer, once it’s all said and done.

I think what did it in for me has the odd flavor created by the type of yeast used in the brewing process. Jolly Pumpkin grows the yeast strain within the barrel (some are quite old) and to me it results in a sour, almost bad cheese taste. The aroma is good..very spicy and citrusy...but the taste is dominated by this sourness and that pretty much ruins the rest of the beer.

Luciernaga pours an orange-gold with a massive ivory head. Lots of belgian spice, especially coriander, and lots of citrus. Not my favorite style, but probably my favorite of the Jolly Pumkin beers.

The aroma was strongly fruity through the huge moussy and tall super long lasting frothy head. The aroma had a brett character and a strong presence of oak coupled with spices peppery and earthy. The beer poured into the glass and then kept coming out the top of the bottle, even when half was consumed. The beer was lightly hazy golden and with that super duper head that was second to none. The flavors that came forth as one sucks the head were pure oak. Following that was a nice fruity nature and a strong bittering character. The flavor was earthy and spicy and uniquely interesting. The flavor had a presence of brett coupled to wood and had some citrus, some light caramel and a wheat characteristic. The finish was dry with lasting strong bittering and oak long into the aftertaste and beyond. The body was medium, or maybe more, but the HUGE carbonation was almost too much for enjoyment. A very interesting and tasty beer, this puppy was alive and kicking. 750 ml capped bottle.