Jolly Pumpkin La Roja

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

Pours a murky reddish brown with a solid greyish head. Aroma is sweet n sour berries, yeasty and lightly spicy. Flavour is light caramell and sour berries, sweet apples, pears and refreshingly yeasty. Ends on a light bitter and sweet sour note with lingering fruit. Very drinkable and nice.

750ml bottle. Pours ruddy brown with red highlights and a medium sized, creamy, off white head and specks of lace. Smells of light, sweet malts with some nice sour characteristics, vinegar and a little wood. Tastes sour and sweet and woody. Sour from the bugs and sour from the wood. Sweet and light fruity too. Medium body, good carbonation.

Bottle - This was a ridiculous gusher of a bottle -- carbonation came out of this sucker like a worm for a good five minutes. It’s rosy, with some yeasty floaties and a tan creamy head. Smell is sour citrus and brett. Taste is citrus -- lemon, orange, and some tart cherries -- finishing with oak and lemon. It’s not exactly easy-drinking, but pretty smooth, bubbly and light.

The sweet tartness of a Jolly Pumpkin is so wonderful. The pour is a semi-dark amber. The aroma is filled with sour fruits. The flavor is even better. The sour fruits and slight malts are mixed perfectly to make a truly enjoyable beer.

Bottle says this is Blend 7, 2008. Big foam-producing head. Slightly sour, yeasty, cheesey aroma. Smooth and enjoyably bitter, with a good amount of citrus flavor too. Robust and has that handmade quality I have noticed in other JP releases. I agree with ricke who said that this grows on you and gets better as one reaches the bottom of the bottle. At US$15 (reduced to 12) for a 25.4 ounce bottle, it is priced too high.

(bottle). Clear ruby/amber color. medium off white head. Light sour and oak aroma. Moderate oak flavor with light sour & malt. Avg duration. Smooth finish. Slick texture. Moderate carbonation. Spare lacing.

Ruby colored with some orange hues. Slightly hazy. A big dense but still quite fluffy head with an off-white, almost yellowish, color stays around for quite a while. Good lacings. A rather fine-tuned smell, with some faint champagne-like characteristics. Plenty of fruity aromas (mostly ripe apples). Some vinegar. Sweet chocolate. General pleasant tart notes. Plenty of funk going on as well - wet hay, dirt and horse blanket. Some phenols. An interesting smell to say the least. The taste is not as rich as the smell actually. Fruitiness (sweet cherries and currants, tart apples) and a semi-harsh funkiness (horse blanket, stable). Grass, chocolate, yeast, barrel notes, and dry earth. The finish is semi-dry with notes of green apples, grapes, some alcohol, faint medicinal phenols and a floral bitterness. Medium body and the beer is quite dry from start to finish. The carbonation is rather prominent at fist but it calms down after a while. Actually, the beer undergoes a positive development throughout the journey, it opens up and gets a better overall expression. This is a very good and interesting beer, but not exceptional. The smell outweighs the taste, which is kind of a shame. And as noted, it got better after a while in the glass. Would definitely have it again if it was offered. Serving type: bottle (Copy of old Beer Advocate review)

29th July 2008. Reddish brown cloudy beer. Sour tartness but with a medicinal twist. Plenty of oaky dryness in the finish plus more medicinal spicyness. Slightly out there flavour but a nice beer.