Cisco Brewing's Pumple Drumpkin

So remember how I said I would review another pumpkin beer, even if I had to do it in the freezing cold and semi-dark?

Well, I didn't have to do it in the cold or the dark. But I would have, and that's what matters.

We actually ended up going to our friend's house because we still didn't have power by the time I got home from work. So I brought my beer with me and reviewed it there. Now, I have to say that when I review a beer, I get really into it. Before the bottle's even opened, I take pictures of the bottle / label. I have someone (usually my dad) pour it into a glass while I take pictures of that. Then I take about a billion pictures of how the beer looks in the glass. Maybe I'll pair it with the bottle if the label looks especially cool. Then I spend time considering the color, the amount of carbonation, whether it looks clear or murky, the size/color of the head, etc. Then I, for lack of a better description, stick my nose in the glass and smell. And smell. And consider the smell. Then smell it again.

At this point usually ten minutes or so have passed and I'm getting weird looks from people who aren't used to the whole process. I dont think I got any weird looks that night, but it's definitely the sort of thing where if people dont get it, they'll wonder what the hell I'm doing.

Anyway, onward.

This pumpkin beer was the Cisco Brewing's Pumple Drumpkin, which is based in Nantucket, MA. They use local Nantucket pumpkins to make this beer. They also put this description on the bottle:

"On Nantucket a Pumple named Drumkin, brewed up some great ale with his pumpkins. One and all came to savor the delicious flavor, then wobbled around quite like bumpkins. At Cisco they thought, 'This De-Lish! Let’s make some more because we wish, to please all the tourists, and locals and purists, with the best ale that we can accomplish!'"

It also has a rather silly label.

Color: A dark amber with lighter red/orange colors where the light shines through. It pours with a thin white head that slowly disappears, but leaves a sexy slip of lace on the side of the glass. You have no idea how long I've been waiting to type that sentence.

The snowflakes on the glass just add to the allure.

Aroma: Slightly more pumpkin-y than the others with a hint of cinnamon. There's less of a brown sugar sweet smell, so the pumpkin is more prominent. There's also a sort of bitter, earthy smell, which comes from the hops. It's a bit unexpected, so at first I didn't recognize it. Even with the Dogfish Head Punkin, I didn't really smell the hops, just tasted them through the bitterness in the beer. And you don't really expect a prominent hop smell from a pumpkin beer--you expect pumpkin smells. So it took me a moment to sort out what I was smelling.

First Sip: Cinnamon and pumpkin with bitterness and hop taste. It tastes kind of like the outdoors, if that makes any sense at all. (You know, kind of like on a fall day after you've chainsawed a couple large tree branches and there's that cool, leafy, smell in the air?) The hops are actually more flavorful than the pumpkin, and it's the cinnamon that's more of the secondary flavor.

Mouthfeel: The bitterness is there, and the pumpkin comes through with it. Again, it's got more hop taste than the Punkin. The Punkin had more cinnamon/brown sugar/spices that you taste more than the bitterness. In Pumple Drumpkin, you get the pumpkin, the hops, and a little bit of spices. Overall, it's a hoppier beer than I thought it would be, and the pumpkin kind of comes through in the background and at the end.

Aftertaste: Some sweeter pumpkin-hop taste, then it fades away leaving just slight hints of cinnamon.

Overall, it's a good solid beer. As a beer itself, it's really rather tasty. As a pumpkin beer, it's not my favorite, but it's one I would have again. So if you're looking for a really flavorful pumpkin taste, I would look elsewhere first. If you're just looking for a beer to enjoy, then this would be a good candidate.