Lured by the promise of pumpkin ale aged for six months, we decided to spend Halloween as the end of our pumpkin beer tasting at DuClaw's brewing company. Apparently, this was the last day of the DuClaw Retribution Pumpkin Ale (10.5% ABV), so we were anxious to try it out. Upon ordering, the waitress (dressed as Velma) told us that most people did not like the beer and instead to enjoy their 31 pumpkin ale, at a lesser 5% ABV. We did, and were were happy with the beer. Overall, the beer was good taste wise and was a great compliment to the sliders we had. We were expecting something much more ABV wise, but we felt that it had the following characteristics:
look: 4.0 | smell: 4.0 | taste: 4.0 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 4.0
Then, we decided to taste the retribution. It was good, but as far as pumpkin ales go, it had a long way to go. It tasted more like a whiskey than it did a beer, and there were little tastes of pumpkin at all. The Retribution tasted as:
look: 4.5 | smell: 3.2 | taste: 3.0 | feel: 3.0 | overall: 3.0
Though we still did have a 10oz version of it, we felt as though the 31 would be a better fit. After returning home, we thought it would be good to test a few more beers before the end of the season. First we tried shipyard, which did not fare well with Tara (she only drank a few sips of the sample). At 9% ABV it was similar to retribution, though not aged in a barrel or anything....Overall,
look: 4.5 | smell: 3.2 | taste: 3.0 | feel: 3.0 | overall: 3.0
Luckily, we had also picked up a 5% pumpkin ale to round out the tastings. It proved to be well received by everyone and ranked as:
look: 4.0 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 4.0 | feel: 4.0 | overall: 4.0
Pumpkin ale testing went well. Looking forward to the next challenge!
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