So I picked up a 4 pack of 2016 Dogfish Head Punkin Ale. I had them over several days (as I was concerned if what I had eaten or if allergies were affecting the flavor) and every beer tasted different, most not so good. Here's how they went: Beer 1: Not too bad, but very muted flavor. Almost non-existent smell which is what made me wonder if allergies were a problem. Beer 2: Sharp, sharp alcohol flavor. Like rotgut vodka sharp. Overwhelmed everything in the beer. Ended up as a drain pour and I can handle alcohol burn. Beer 3: Good bottle. Tasted like everything I've ever heard about this beer. Beautiful. Beer 4: Vegetable. Not pumpkin flavor, vegetable. Kinda like the flavor of the stem before it dries out vegetable. Anyone ever have these problems? Thoughts on what could have caused them? Should I contact DFH? Thanks for the advice!
From your unique descriptions, it doesn't sound like other food tastes that may have been already in your mouth when drinking these beers are a reason for the quality differences, and each bottle likely had its unique flavor. That's a QC issue that DFH likely would want to know about. Any bottling date or batch coding differences on the label? (I don't know how or if DFH shows any coding.)
Typically if I'm trying a new beer I'll do it a couple of hours after the last time I ate something. The bottles went out last night in the trash, but I had checked the date, 2016.
It would be pretty obvious if that were the case because Dogfish changes their seasonal label art every year. This year's label art is particularly awesome and almost convinced me to pick up a pack. This thread made me happy that I passed on it!
I'm going to go with what you ate last and atmospheric pressure changes as being the culprit of what caused this as these bottles are filled within seconds of one another during the packaging run. Seasonal shifts do very real things to how one perceives taste.
I just bought a 4 pack after not having this beer for 4 years. Opened one last night. Very mild spice smell quite thin and the spice taste just barely came in at the end. Really not a spice bomb at all but really not flavorful at all either. I remember this being a bit more flavorful 4 years ago. Not a pumkin beer person but I just needed to revisit to make sure. I am sure now. The art is pretty cool this year. Enjoy
