744. Redhook Ale Brewery – Out Of Your Gourd Pumpkin Porter

Posted By kkozlen on Nov 8, 2014 | 0 comments

It’s been a fairly relaxing Saturday watching college football and basketball and being mildly productive. Now that dinner is finished and the kids have taken over the main TV, I decided to sit down in the kitchen and enjoy a beer. I picked up this one in Chicago a few weeks ago, along with the other pumpkin beers I’ve been trying lately. I haven’t been too successful at finding new pumpkin beers to add to my top 10 pumpkin beers list. Although I’m drinking this only a few weeks after I bought it, it says that it was bottled on July 31 of this year. It seems like pumpkin beers are being made earlier and earlier every year.

Location: Poured into a curved pint glass at my home in Bloomington, IL.

Numbers: 5.8% ABV, ~150 Calories

Appearance & Aroma: it’s dark brown, almost completely black in color, with some dark brown highlights when held up to the light. It had a decent sized tan head that fell after a few minutes to a fan creamy layer of bubbles that barely covered the top. The aroma is a mix of pumpkin pie spices, cocoa and toffee.

Taste & Feel: The body is light-medium and the mouthfeel is fairly crisp. The flavor up front is somewhat sweet and roasty maltiness. It’s a bit watery in the middle as the sweetness fades a bit and the spices come in.  The finish is light pumpkin pie spices with the light roasty malty sweetness in the background. The light spices last for a brief time in the aftertaste.

Food Pairing: The flavors in this beer were fairly light, but if you wanted to go with some complementary flavors, I’d have this with a steak and a sweet potato. However, if you wanted some contrasting flavors to pair with this beer, I’d go with a pork tenderloin or a pork chop.

Overall Impression: The flavors in this beer were somewhat light, and it seemed like this beer was made to attract light beer drinkers to try something lightly pumpkin flavored for the holidays. Both the porter roastiness and pumpkin pie spices were fairly light, and I prefer those flavors to be a bit richer in both beer styles. Overall, I liked the flavors, I just which they were richer and stood out a little bit more.

My Rating: