SEASONALBREWS
Pumpkin ales, Oktoberfest beers among highlights for fall
One of the many benefits of the craft beer explosion in the 21st century is that brewers far and wide never miss a season or holiday celebration (or any other reason) to put out specialty beers. h Fall is no exception, as a recent visit to the local supermarket revealed. Its already ample beer selection was replete with fall seasonals, with walls of pumpkin ales and stacks of Oktoberfest offerings. h So, why not jump in and give 'em a try? h But where to start? Well, every great journey begins with but a single beer (or something like that), so I randomly picked out a "six-pack" featuring three pumpkins and three Oktoberfests to get into the spirit of the season.
h This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a sampler of the many beers out there from among local, statewide and national brewers. (If I tried everything on the shelves today, I wouldn't live to see the Christmas ale season.) Without further ado, here's what I found:
Pumpkin ales
Confession time: Pumpkin ales once were something I tended to avoid. I always thought they would be too, well, pumpkin-y and not enough ale-y.
But those sneaky craft brewers have a way of making pretty much everything taste good. Pumpkin ales definitely have grown on me, and they are a nice marker of the post-labor Day seasonal change, much like the start of football season.
And, as you will note below, these breweries DO NOT MESS AROUND WHEN MAKING PUMPKIN ALES. Trying to find one that was not a high-alcohol imperial was difficult, so I happily gave up after an exhaustive two minutes of looking.
Here are the three I sampled:
h Pope's Imperial Pumpkin Ale, Millersburg Brewing Co.
$10.99 for a four-pack of 12-ounce cans; 9% alcohol by volume
Think Grandma's pumpkin pie, but with a hefty ABV (take that, Grandma!). This pumpkin is smashing, a big, fullbodied, dark-orange ale brimming with flavors and spices such as vanilla, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. You will go out of your gourd with this big-league ale from a small-town Ohio brewer. A favorite of mine, regardless of style.
h Kentucky Pumpkin Barrel Ale, Lexington Brewing & Distilling Co., Lexington, Kentucky
$14.99 for a four-pack of 12-ounce bottles; 10% alcohol by volume
Think Grandma's pumpkin pie, but with a little bourbon flavor added to the mix (Kentucky Grandma claps back!). Lighter in color and body than Pope's and Spooky Tooth (see below), this ale still packs a wallop. Aged in oak bourbon barrels, this ale leaves a velvetysmooth sampling of bourbon on the tongue, in nice balance with the usual suspects of pumpkin ale flavors such as brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.
h Spooky Tooth Imperial Pumpkin Ale, Fat Head's Brewing, Middleburg Heights, Ohio
$10.99 for a four-pack of 12-ounce cans; 9% alcohol by volume
Touted as "the pumpkin ale with bite," the Fat Head's version is a closer cousin to Pope's in terms of color and body. The "bite" referred to in this deep, coppery-orange ale likely is its 9% ABV, not the actual taste of the ale itself. Though big and robust, it is not bitter (a mild 22 on the International Bitterness Units scale), and it, too, has the all the makings of a rich, creamy pumpkin-pie style brew. Dig in!
Oktoberfest beers
Oktoberfest is one of the great rites of fall each year. Though Columbus held its Oktoberfest celebration last weekend, the official 2021 version begins Saturday and ends on Oct. 2 (making it more of a Septemberfest this year, I reckon).
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the annual two-week festival began in Munich, Germany, in 1810, and originally was a celebration of the marriage of the crown prince of Bavaria (later King Louis I) to Princess Therese von Sachsen-hildburghausen.
And, like any festival worth its salt, Oktoberfest eventually came to revolve around beer drinking. Encyclopedia Britannica notes that in Munich, which still is the world host to an event that has spread around the globe, brewers now construct temporary beer halls with seating capacities of up to 6,000 and, after the ceremonial tapping of the first keg, revelers down some 2 million gallons of beer over the festival's two-week run.
Doing my part to make that total 2 million gallons and 40 ounces (think globally, act locally!), I tried these three versions:
h Samuel Adams Oktoberfest, Boston Beer Co.
$9.99 for a six-pack of 12-ounce bottles; 5.3% alcohol by volume
This Boston Beer offering, from the second-largest craft beer operation in the U.S. (Yuengling of Pennsylvania is No. 1), pours a clear, deep caramel color. Its malt-forward combo is touted as "hearty and smooth" on the label, but I would add "sweet" to that description as well. And, after the pumpkin ales described above, the 5.3% ABV felt like a walk in the park. Nothing disagreeable here.
h Norden Hoch, North High Brewing Co., Columbus
$11.99 for a six-pack of 12-ounce cans; 5.4% alcohol by volume
The local product is significantly lighter in color than the Sam Adams version, pouring a hazy orange-tan. Norden Hoch also is nowhere near as sweet — has more of a toasty/bready flavor — and is fuller-bodied. Once you get past a little bit of a funky aroma when first poured, there's nothing to argue about with this Marzen. A smooth, straightforward, non-bitter, easy-drinker. And a "fun fact" noted on the side of the can: "The contents of three of these cans will fill a 1-liter beer stein very nicely." So you get a little metric conversion lesson while drinking three beers out of a giant mug, to boot.
h Oktoberfest, Masthead Brewing Co., Cleveland
$10.99 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans; 5.7% alcohol by volume
After sampling beers that all trended toward the sweeter end of the spectrum, Masthead's German-style lager offers a little kick of bitterness amid its copious malts. It pours a clear, deep gold, and offers a hoppier, less-sweet flavor profile. And, in keeping with the Oktoberfest celebration, Masthead notes that drinking this beer "will make you think you are standing on a table dressed in Lederhosen (or a Dirndl) swinging a bierstein in Munich. Prost!"
And isn't that why we're all here?
pholbrook@gannett.com