Pumpkin Ale With Vanilla
Captain Lawrence Brewing Co.

 

A: Impressive looking head for a cask beer but they did say the primed it with something special. About 2 fingers worth of white head with nice lacing. Bright orange amber color. A few things floating around fairly nice clarity.

S:The vanilla rally does compliment the spices very well. At times all the spices can just become harsh in the nose. This was very smooth and took a great pumpkin beer and brought it one step closer to smelling like pumpkin pie.

T: Wow this was a nice and really balanced pumpkin ale. The regular version is a nice mix of actual pumpkin with a balanced spicing. The cask conditioning and addition of vanilla evened this beer out.

M: Pitch perfect.

D: A very drinkable pumpkin ale which is really hard to do. Too bad this might never be seen again. Outstanding.

This review is for the cask-conditioned Pumpkin Ale with Vanilla added available at the brewery during the SFTO Apple Brandy Barrel.

Pours a dark golden amber/orange with golden burnt orange hues when held to a light source with a thick frothy white head that has excellent retention, lasting throughout the whole glass and leaving sporadic splotchy of soapy lacing behind.

Nice autumnal aroma of pumpkin, brown sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. This has much more of a sweet pumpkin pie dessert like aroma than the regular Pumpkin Ale. Also, the added vanilla is prominent balancing out the spice notes.

Silky medium body with a perfect amount of malt backbone which I think is somewhat lacking in the regular version. Once again the flavor is dominated by pumpkin, cinnamon brown sugar, nutmeg and vanilla. All of the strong pumpkin pie like flavors are very well balanced by the sweet vanilla presence making this beer extremely quaffable. One of the best pumpkin beers I've had.