Jolly Pumpkin Maracaibo Especial

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

This is so a flemish sour ale. Murky garnet and burgundy colored body with a small-bubbled tan and pink head. Faint but inviting sour brett and oak nose, with some dough and crackers and cedar wood scents. Exceptional smell to this beer, I’m amazed... I don’t want to stop smelling it. It tastes wonderfully vibrant and fresh, with cedar, yogurt and lactic acid the most dominant flavors, some oak and sour black cherries in the mix as well. A great recipe, and it’s made very well.

Bottle. Poured a dark brown. Aroma was a little sour and earthy. Flavor was like aroma, sour, musty, it’s hard for me to get used to the sour / horse blanket thing that is always present in JP beers. Not what I was expecting from the bottle description.

Aroma: spicy sweet and sourness, some grassiness, mint, and earthiness
Appearance: dark brown, small white head, lacing
Flavor: spicy, fruitiness with oak, vanilla bean, dark cherries, and cherry pits/skins, earthiness, mustiness, and light butter
Palate: spicy, nicely tart, creamy, slight bubbliness, nice spicy aftertaste
Overall: almost gueze-like, an excellent sour-type ale

A tad on the tart side, it was many flavors with spices, oranges and caramel. The taste gives a slight lemony aftertaste that embeds the beer a little bit. Alcohol is constant throughout

The aroma is very much like a lambic. It’s got wild yeast, spices, and fruit. The appearance is really pretty with a deep cloudy amber color and a tan foamy head. The flavor is too sour with maybe a little bit of cacao but I don’t really taste much cacao in this one. But there is definitely spice here. The palate is pretty good but overall I am not crazy about it.

Let this sit for a while, and honestly it needed some more sitting, none the less it was still good. Poured out a cloudy medium colored brown/copper with a tiny whispy head. Aroma of yeast, spice and some vinous notes. Taste is complex, but in this bottle’s case needed a little more time to develop. Tart citrus, spice, yeast and some sourness. Solid beer.

Bottle. The first JP I’ve opened that didn’t gush...is this a bad sign? Pours light brown with practically no head at all. Has the typical sour smell, which I always enjoy, plus some citrus/orange notes. Upon tasting, the first thing you get is the tartness, followed by orange. The funk/horseblanket then proceeds to take over the palate. Despite that particular taste being part of a great many beers, I think I’m still trying to get used to it. As it goes down, I finally get a hint of the cacao that was promised to me on the label. Not much carbonation in this one. Another solid brew from JP to be sure, but I’m not sure I could drink a lot of it in a sitting. Perhaps that’s the point.

Thanks to jasonmech77 for hooking me up. A very hazy light brown beer with a fast-fading light brown head. The aroma is all JP. Tart lactic top notes with a funky leathery dustiness in the back as well. There is a hint of light cocoa in back. Great creamy texture. Peppery and tart at the same time. The flavour is fantastic, tart lactic sourness, leather, horseblanket and lots of funkiness. Lingering malt and chocolate on the back of the palate. This chocolate character is accentuated as the beer warms to room temperature. A completely unique beer that works quite well. Earthy bitterness on the back with a hint of bitter orange.