Jolly Pumpkin Maracaibo Especial

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

Poured a ruddy orange with a small compact head. Aroma of caramel, boozy, with yeasty notes. Flavor is well spiced, cocoa with cinnamon toast, with a bitter dry finish.

Bottle @ Cervezageek - smagning, Odense. Batch 349. Pours cloudy dark brown with a creamy white head and lacings. Nose is deep of oak, brett, fruit, caramel and hops. Fresh, earhty, dry and a bit tart taste. Mildly spiced and vaguely sticky. Well balanced. Dope

(Bottle, batch 349, at Pikkulintu, Helsinki, on 2009-08-26) A gusher. Dark brown and hazy. Very large and tan coloured head that lasts long. Sour and fruity aroma. Full bodied and dry palate with medium carbonation. Stongly sourness, bitterness, acridity and fruitiness in taste. Sour and bitter aftertaste. I suppose this was a bad bottle.

Hazy amber with a huge and fluffy off-white head. Sweet caramel flavoour with fruity notes, and a little brett. Dry and tart fruity flavour of plum and cherry. Dark chocolate and spices take over before a quite bitter finish.

Sampled at the GTMW. Murky brown with a moderate tan head. Aroma of oak, varnish, chocolate and spices. Taste is ultra sour with mild chocolate, cinnamon, spices and tannins. A little on the thin side but overall pretty good.

Sampled at GTMW 09. Notes are a bit illegible but apparantly it pours dark w/ a big fluffy head and smells like cinnamon and other spices. Warm swallow and delicious.

Typical JP gusher, not as much as most but still. Batch 349. Pours a murky, chestnut color with a massive, beige, creamy, fluffy head which takes some time to settle but leave lasting foam and some sporadic lace. Nose is certainly bretty with lots of lemony sourness, wet hay, faint wet oak, and lighter horse blanket but also some malty notes as well with some toasted caramel, light dry chocolate, and hints of cinnamon. The flavor is started by the tart brett notes but quickly the malts and spicing come in to play; tart lemon starts the progression but soon seems to taste more orangey, then leads to the dry chocolate, light cinnamon, wet oak, burnt caramel, and hints of smoke finishing the progression. The chocolate and cinnamon seem to come through more the more I drink. Palate is lively, drying, velvety, and medium. Finishes somewhat dry, with some light smoke, wet oak, a mild bitterness, and lingering cinnamon. One of those beers that seemed to be too bretty at first but the more I had to drink the more I seemed to enjoy the bretty complements. JP does some really good sourish-type beers and none of them are similar in any way. This one is no exception.

75 cL bottle. Pours a hazy to murky with a huge tan head. Steady growing with a clear indication of an infection. Aroma is slight tart citric, chocolate and roasted caramel malt yet also wineous. Citric and wineous fruity flavoured. Vague smoked infection note. Fruity and cacao malty flavoured finish with a mild wooden note. Lingering fruity wineous and malty finish. Nice despite the element of infection.