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Yesterday, in honor of fall and Sunday Funday and beer and pumpkin and all that good stuff, we (*) decided to have a pumpkin beer taste test. I mean B was already drinking pumpkin beer and was making pumpkin pie, so why not?
Somehow we just happened to have six different types of pumpkin beer on hand. Is that weird? I hope not.
Here’s what we tested:
A. Shipyard Brewing Co. Smashed Pumpkin
B. Buffalo Bills’s Brewery Pumpkin Ale
C. New Holland Brewing Ichabod Pumpkin Ale
D. Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale
E. Shock-Top Pumpkin Wheat
F. Shipyard Brewing Pumpkinhead
Since we know we love Shipyard Pumpkinhead, I wanted to make it fair. Â I considered a blindfolded taste test, but then it dawned on me that drinking while blindfolded wouldn’t be such a good idea? Â So I assigned numbers to the beers and labeled little plastic cups accordingly. Â B had no idea which beer was which number. Â And, although I hadn’t even had a sip yet, I too was confused. Â Even though I had written it all down. Â LOL.
B took his taste testing job very seriously and got some pretzel crisps out to “cleanse the pallet” between tastes.
Although he rolls his eyes at some of my ideas (but always plays along), I think he really liked this idea!
B (and I) had already decided which beer was our favorite, but had to drink every last drop of every cup, just so it wouldn’t go to waste.
I am please to report that the winner was……The Shipyard Pumpkinhead!
We both agreed that it was, by far, the best. Â We liked the Smashed Pumpkin the least. Â Ick! Â Here’s how we ranked them all:
It’s kinda of funny because before the taste test, B had been drinking the Smashed Pumpkin an was enjoying it!
Now, I have been informed that we need to try Imperial Pumking, Screamin’ Pumpkin Spice Ale and Dogfish Head Punkin Ale, so I think next time we’ll do a taste test with those three, plus the top two from this test (Shipyard Pumpkin Head and Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale).
So tell me, what’s your favorite pumpkin beer?  Am I missing any here?  What else should we add to the next test?  And don’t worry, I’ll be sure to keep you all updated on this very important work we are doing over here ;).
(*) We meaning that I set it all up and B did most of the drinking.
We used sweet potato fries to cleanse our palate when we did the beer tasting in La. Save some for Fri. nite and Brett and I will give our imput.
I love that this was a Sunday Funday activity. My brother & I did this one day, and Shipyard was my favorite as well (His is Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin). Another one you could add to the list for next time is Southern Tier Pumking.
this is amazing! Shipyard is by far my favorite too – I haven’t tried the shocktop one yet maybe I will try that if I can’t find shipyard next time! 🙂
Sunday Funday for sure! But, how was Monday???? 😉
I love this!! We are big fans of the Blue Moon but nothing beats Dogfish Head Punkin’! Have you tried it?
I’ll be sure to pick up shipyard pumpkinhead. We have season tickets to msu…so lots of tailgating this fall…this post will come in handy! I bought woodchuck cider FALL…it was a pumpkin version of their cider. You could throw that in your next taste test for kicks. 😉
Just found your blog the other day and I LOVE it! You should try the Pumpkin UFO beer from Harpoon. It’s delish!
Thanks for the recommendation! I am for sure adding it to my list!