Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale

Brewed by Shipyard Brewing Company
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Portland, Maine USA

12oz bottle. Pours light orange with a fizzy white head. Smells very spicy, cinnamon and allspice with a hint of pumpkin and some malt. Tastes of lots of cinnamon and allspice, some pumpkin. Pretty watered down overall. Thin body, ok carbonation.

Pours light, clear amber into a shaker. Bright white head with good retention leaves no lacing as it recedes to skim surface. Nutmeg and soured cinnamon aromas. Spiced and soured watermelon-pumpkin pie. Almost a lactic berliner weisse finish.

Golden. Thin head. Aroma: Pumpkin, nutmeg, cinnamon. Flavor: Pumpkin, water, nutmeg, cinnamon. Watery finish. Perhaps over-rated.

A wonderful seasonal brew. Slight aroma of fresh baked pumpkin pie with a pleasant but subtle pie flavor. Well rounded and not to in your face like some pumpkin brews.

Clear amber, sweet, pumpkin pie, with nutmeg and cinnamon, little hoppy, dry finish.

Pours a sadly light orange with amost zero head, no lacing. Nose is of course, quite a bit like pumpkin pie, with noticeable cinnamon/nutmeg type spiciness and slight pumpkin sweetness. Body is thin, palate is dry, with a very mild grassy hop profile very near the finish that tempers the biscuity pumpkin malt dominance. Not a bad pumpkin ale, just not the best.

This beer sucessfully captures the taste of autumn. I have never been much of an autumn beer enthusiast but pumpkin head delivers the taste of a pumpkin pie without an artificial feel. The months of September and October have become my favorite months for beer.

the aroma is best--warm pumpkin pie like at thanksgiving; gold body, yellow highlight, minimal activity, minimal lacing, small white head; the palate is somewhat spiky and chunky, but simply thin when it is warmed; the flavor does not do justice to the aroma at all, but the aftertaste is pleasant; mediocre.