Pumpkick
New Belgium Brewing Company

Essence of gingerbread, amber with very thick creamy head. Else it’s not as rich as some of the other fall pumpkin beers I’ve tried recently. Not bad, but not great.

Trying to not write too scathing of a review. You see, there was Kick, and that was a good beer, the predecessor to this. Then they gave us this instead, and it is nowhere near as good.

Pours a burnt orange not unlike a pumpkin itself but darker. 1/3" off white head. Aroma of pumpkin and a little bit of nutmeg, but I miss the notes of wood and cranberry tartness alongside the old version.

Taste, aw shit, this is just a bland pumpkin ale. No sourness, no tartness, no oak influence, little cranberry contribution, no feeling of fall leaves in the background. Carbonation is higher than I would like for something like this. Chill it out man. What a disappointment. You can still pull some cranberry for it, but it really needs the wood and bugs to make it work, instead you just get two kinds of fruit that are a shell of their former selves in the kick beer.

Significant downward departure from Kick here. Kick is fun to drink with friends and family at Thanksgiving. This is a chore.

 

**
Various

Update of Pumpkin Beer from 2013-2019 Blind Tastings.

**

"Best by 2/26/17"; drank 10/17/16 @ the Yarchives.

Semi-opaque dark orange appearance.

A rough pour yielded a small eggshell head; frothy lace.

Pumpkin pie, graham cracker, mild cranberry & faint booze heat notes in the nose.

Medium mouthfeel.

Graham cracker & pumpkin pie flavors up front; faint cranberry notes on the finish. A cinnamon bite settled on my lips over the course of the quaff.

Mild, but enough to hold my interest; above average for the "pumpkin beer" genre.

 

 

Pumpkick leaves a nice lacing around the glass & it is well carbonated. This is the first beer that I ever had that used the addition of cranberry puree in it & I like it. The taste is sweety & more tarty than usual for a pumpkin beer. I am glad that the cranberries are not overly done because that would just ruined things. This is not a beer that I plan on revisiting because there are plenty of better pumpkin beers on the market. Cheers! B-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single bottle from the gas station that sold me the old turntable pils earlier. No date here either. Let's hope for the best.

Look - Pours a moderately murky amber with decent clarity. Head stacks to a finger and the carbonation appears to be pretty high. Low lace and stick upon a finished glass.

Smell - All the typical pumpkin spices you've come to expect. Touch of a sulfur aspect indicating it may be from last years batch. Can't tell quite yet.

Taste - Pumpkin spice dominate. Wow who ever would have guessed it in a pumpkin ale!. Clove, nutmeg minimal. Slight wet cardboard.

Feel - Well this is rare. The body is almost TOO heavy for the style. Carbonation wasn't much of a factor but this is one you really don't wanna let sit around the mouth for too long. For some unknown reason I nearly gagged on this as it sat around.

Overall - Another average pumpkin ale in my opinion. You could do much, much worse than this. Remember getting that shipyard or whatever pumpkin ale last year for $9.99 a case and that stuff was trash. Guess if you could get this at a similar price you'd catch a pretty damn good deal. Just don't let it sit around too much.

Pours a hazy orange/amber color and leaves a two finger white foamy head, lacing is sporadic and spider webbed, the smell obviously has pumpkin up front with some clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, then as it warms a bit there is a slight scent of cranberry, the taste has the pumpkin dominating with all of the previously mentioned flavors and becoming slightly tart due to the cranberry, its fairly easy on the palate and drinkable, overall, this is a good Pumpkin Ale that I would come back to.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting "kick" with the cranberries. Something different in a pumpkin beer.

 

Bottle poured into a New Belgium globe

A: Pours hazy reddish copper with a frothy tan head that settles to a light layer and leaves a little nice lacing.

S: First smell you get the spices, cinnamon and nutmeg, comes off like cinnamon toast, then with a little agitation you get some tart cranberry and maybe a hint of pumpkin.

T: Mild cranberry tartness up front, followed with spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, earthy pumpkin, and a little lightly toasted malt.

M: Medium body, moderate carbonation

O: Cool twist on a pumpkin ale. Would be a nice refreshing brew while working up a sweat raking leaves.

 

 

Cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, pumpkin, cranberry, and fat tire. Love it.

Poured from a 12 oz bottle into a pint glass. The appearance is a clear bright amber color with a small white head. The aroma is pumpkin, cranberries and spices. The taste is very similar to the nose. A solid pumpkin ale.