Southern Tier Pumking

Brewed by Southern Tier Brewing Company
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Lakewood, New York USA

First of all, the aroma is amazing, like many Souther Tier’s beers. However, I don’t get as much of a pumpkin flavor as I do a ginger spice flavor from this beer. It is very good and does help welcome in the fall.

Brilliantly crafted, first time trying and loved it. Pours into tulip deep orange with little head. Aroma is amazing - rich baked pumpkin, cardamon, nutmeg and allspice, light toffee and a hint of whipped cream. Taste is much the same with full, rounded flavors, late bitterness and hidden alcohol. Mouthfeel is almost perfect, smooth, creamy and resinous with a little hop bite that I’m sure with smooth out with age. This ale is liquid pie perfection.

Bomber. Colour.... orange with no head at all. Nose... roasted pumpking and roasted pumpkin seeds, pie spice. Palate... more roasted pumpkin and seeds, brown sugar, gently pie spice. Truly a pumpkin ale and not a, "pumpkin-pie-spice ale" like so many pumpkin ales really are!

First off, I dislike pumpkins, my wife’s mother bought this for me because they didn’t have one of the beers I told her to get, so a lad a Austin Liqours picked this out instead. I infact, don’t like pumpkins, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, or pumpkin pudding, if it’s a food that starts with pumpkin I have a natural loathing towards it. That being said, this beer isn’t bad. I wouldn’t ever buy it again, because, like I said, I don’t like pumpkins, however, it IS a well crafted brew, and that much I can appreciate. The beer pours a manuka honey gold, with a shortly lived head. The aroma is....oh my stars.....pumpkin.....pumpkin pie to be exact, and i do mean EXACT. The flavour follows suit with a liquid replica of pumpkin pie. with an underlying sweetness that I find to be very well balanced with a sour/bitter hop bite all the way through and on to the finish. I very decent brew from one of my favorite brewing companies. God Bless You Southern Tier, for making life worth living.

Amber color with a foamy white head, heavy lacing. Nose is doughy and sweet, with faint sugary cookie, pumpkin, and light cinnamon and ginger. Overly sweet flavor loses some of the nuance from the nose, the cookie and ginger dominating. Light bitterness in the finish, but still sweet and bordering on cloying. Rather short finish that retains a hint of cookie. One of the best pumpkin beers I’ve had, and incredibly malty, yet this doesn’t go beyond "good" when considered in the context of all beers.

On tap at Kinsale Irish Pub, Boston MA, 2 October 2009. Murky orange colour. Outrageous spicing. Drenched in vanilla. Also cinnamon and something like Parma violets. Way over the top. Distinctly sweet mouthfeel. I’m not generally a huge fan of pumpkin beers and this didn’t do anything to change my mind. The redeeming feature was that it is a big beer so there is an alcohol warmth and some other elements (touches of fruity malt?) to provide token competition for the spices. But I can’t say it was a particularly enjoyable experience overall.

Pumpkin beers are reason #3646 to love the Fall. It’s not hard to market a beer that tastes like a drinkable pumpkin pie. But the flipside of this seasonal treat is that there are a lot of pumpkin beers out there that don’t taste like pumpkin at all. And sadly, Southern Tier’s Imperial Pumking is one of them. And what’s more, this beer came as a recommendation from my local Whole Foods beer monger as a complement to a bottle of Elysian Night Own (my favorite pumpkin beer of all). Like others, the Imperial Pumking develops a thin, white head, and the body is a plain, unadorned orange, with a semi-transparency that does little to hint at the particularly and iconically orange ingredients involved. And from this unassuming orange puddle comes an intensely sweet, perfume-of-candy-shop and creamy aroma. Clove, pumpkin spices, and, in something of a trailblazing move in pumpkin beers, a heavy scent of whipped cream. I also detect heavy caramelized aromas, most especially the distinct smell of baked pie crust. But when the Pumking’s flavor tries to imitate the aroma, it becomes a disaster. Immediately the flavor is pronounced cloying - far, far too sweet, like a cream soda with pumpkin and vegetal notes, but the pumpkin is faint, its decrees a tinny echo in overcrowded room. Thick, sweet flavors like yam repeat their mantra, again and again, muting the pumpkin and covering my palate with the flavor of that ubiquitous Thanksgiving treat: marshmallow and yam casserole.

Rather dissapointing considering the price tag on a bomber of this stuff.Aroma was marginal and the mouthfeel was thin.Color is a decent medium amber with a head that dropped way to fast.Think I’ll pass the Pumking next time.