Worth at least $2 American.

Brewery: Yard's Brewing Company
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Name: Thomas Jefferson's Tavern Ale
Type: Strong Ale
ABV: 8%
"Beer, if drank with moderation, softens the tempter, cheers the spirit, and promotes good health.” I'm pretty sure the rule is if a President says it then it's law, right? Thomas Jefferson had the right idea. Being incredibly intelligent I'm inclined to agree with him, beer is best enjoyed in moderation. I'll figure out how to do that one day. Good job to the folks at Yard's for evoking the beliefs of T.J.! And if you believe everything you read on beer labels, this beer was brewed according to Thomas Jefferson's recipe. This strong ale flows easily from bottle to glass and splashes around in a murky, warm amber color. Even pouring the beer correctly (yes, there is a proper way to pour a beer, inquire if unfamiliar) the head vanishes rather quickly. The lack of foam means no lacing. Sigh, I love rest rings. When you poke your nose in T.J.'s Tavern Ale you get a nice warming sensation. Apricot scented hops and sour dark fruit mask the faint trace of alcohol you will encounter. The fruit fades into a preserve like sweetness and it blends wonderfully with the biscuit notes the bouquet carries. Very mild carbonation does little to prepare you for the taste. You have alcohol right up front that melts into what I could best describe as a pear-like flavor. I don't like pears and it was all I could do to place this taste, I think it's what a pear tastes like anyway. There are some spices that you might pick up on, nothing I can put a name to though. It's just...spicy. The middle is rounded out nicely with malty goodness and then finishes quickly with caramel and alcohol. This reminded me a lot of a dubbel. I was pleasantly surprised by this beer as it was the first offering from Yard's I have encountered. Worth a try if you like bigger beers with bold flavors!

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Good Beer.

Young Punks! Get off my lawn!

Brewery: Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
Location: Milton, DE
Name: Punkin Ale
Type: Pumpkin Ale
ABV: 7%
The progenitor. This was the first pumpkin beer I had and it blew the top of my skull off. Though this was not the beer that set me down this path I am on today it is a seasonal contributor that keeps me on that path. Punkin filled my pint glass with an orange blossom honey color. That's the color of your average, run of the mill honey in a bear shaped bottle type of honey. A creamy white head peaks at about half of an inch thick and slowly collapses back into the beer. The bouquet is wonderful. You get the requisite nutmeg and cinnamon and like the Williamsburg Alewerks you get a nice banana-y note. Huge flavor here and that's no surprise coming from DFH. You get cinnamon and brown sugar like a punch in the mouth. Fair share of nutmeg and fresh pumpkin in the aftertaste. There is the faintest hint of piney hops. There's a minimal amount of carbonation which makes the beer coat your mouth evenly with delicious pumpkin pie flavor. You do get a mild hint of alcohol on the back end but it is complementary in nature and does not distract at all. This is a mild bodied seasonal beer that would be great to cut your pumpkin ale teeth on. By the way, I hate teeth but this beer is worth using that idiom. Chances are you won't be able to find this beer until next fall but take my advice, scoop some up as quickly as you can as it tends to move quickly.

This beer will blow your gourd.

That crown don't make you a prince!

Brewery: Southern Tier Brewing Company
Location: Lakewood, NY
Name: Imperial Pumpking
Type: Imperial pumpkin ale
ABV: 8.8%
I realize it's December. And I realize I haven't been keeping up with this. I don't have a good excuse but I come back with a good beer! Southern Tier hits another home run with this years Pumpking. It pours out a wonderful honey color, closer to the color of an actual pumpkin pie. A first seeings how most of the pumpkin ales I've come across have been a little on the darker side. The head was thin and white with no lacing at all. You get an amazing toasted graham cracker scent in the nose, like the crust of a pie. Familiar pumpkin pie spices are there as well but they do nothing more than compliment the sweet graham smell. It hits the tongue with a light carbonation which is okay because the explosion comes in the flavor. It's like eating a pumpkin pie crust first! The taste of the pie crust is there from the nose and translates perfectly into taste. Following that is natural pumpkin flavor blended nicely with nutmeg. The finish? Honestly it tasted like whipped cream!! It was eyerollingly delicious. The mildly bitter biscuit aftertaste does not take away from the amazing flavor of this beer. This beer is a dessert beer or if you want to be bold, eat it with a hunk of grilled red meat! It's a great accompaniment! Southern Tier brings the pie with this brew. No hints of alcohol at any stage during drinking which is delightfully deceiving. Bring a 22oz. bomber of this home with you!

Enjoy it with a friend. Or be greedy and make them watch you drink it!

If flavor were visible this would be "gourdgeous!"

Brewery: Williamsbug Alewerks
Location: Billy's Burg, VA
Name: Pumpkin Ale
Type: Pumpkin Ale
ABV: 8.0%
Let me start off by not being apologetic about the title of this post. I try, I honestly do. And this time I think I really delivered a winner! With that being said, I present to you another palatable potable from our friends at Williamsburg Alewerks. For the record, I'm not on the payroll. This beer pours out in a torrent of dark honey hues accented nicely with a rich auburn color. A thin head that barely breaks the surface of the beer is present and does little in way of lacing the glass. The spices that come from the bouquet are awesome. As any decent lover of pumpkin pie will tell you there has to be cinnamon and nutmeg. Pumpkin Ale has got that. Also, an olfactory ace up the sleeve, bananas! The taste is as smooth as the smell. The higher alcohol content makes for a smooth and clean mouthfeel. What I like about this beer is that it's a 1:1 taste:flavor beer. You smell that? You taste it. There's a slight alcohol component to the taste but it is not distracting at all. Though not quite imperial it is borderline regal. I enjoyed mine with a steak and I suggest you do the same. This glass of liquid pumpkin pie is too good to go without trying and if you missed it this year then I suggest you prepare for it next year!

Find it. Buy it. Drink it. Love it.

Sleepy Hollow called...

Brewery: New Holland Brewing Co.
Location: Holland, MI
Name: Ichabod
Type: Pumpkin Ale
ABV: 5.2%
This was the first pumpkin ale I had this year. Kind of a big deal because it was one that I had never enjoyed before. It's also nice because I've had it out of a keg as well as out of a bottle...it's always fun to compare notes. In any case, out of the bottle Ichabod is a nice dark amber color. I wanted so badly for this beer to have absolutely no head considering its namesake and all, yet Ichabod brought a nice 1 inch thick head made of clean white foam. Ichabod eventually lost its head. YES! Pun! The bouquet is, in a word, mouthwatering. You get a nose full of pumpkin pie spices including, but not limited to, cinnamon and nutmeg. If you pay close enough attention you can almost pick out a graham pie crust smell. Without surprise the scents turn to tastes that match up. Actual pumpkin flavor takes a bit of a backseat to the more powerful flavors of slightly sweet cinnamon and nutmeg. The cinnamon is the star of the show here. It cuts through the sweetness and plays nicely with a wonderful aftertaste of malt and nutmeg. Not a whole lot going on in the carbonation department which makes for an incredibly easy drinking, full flavored ale. Though not the best in its class, definitely enjoyable!

Better off the tap but good enough out of the bottle.

Lost at sea.

Brewery: Clipper City Brewing Co.
Location: Baltimore, MD
Name:  Heavy Seas Prosit!
Type: Imperial Octoberfest Lager
ABV: 9.0%
I was very much looking forward to my first Heavy Seas "Bomber," what they call their 22oz. bottles, of the season. I had specifically held off on this one due impart to the magic "i" word on the label. Tie that in with the fact that Clipper City makes some pretty good brews and I felt that what I had was a recipe for fried gold. Prosit fires its carbonated canons in the form of a mildly orange brew that produces a massive amount of head. Don't look away though, because you'll miss the fall from grace that the head takes. Malt in the nose jumbled up with faint hops. Notes of some caramel and bread come through. Prosit doesn't hide its alcohol that well, however. I got a harsh booze smell...it was almost unapologetic. Initial taste was pretty good. Nice malt taste that coated the mouth nicely. The malt gives way to what I thought was a pretty harsh alcohol taste. This isn't my first rodeo, I've had beers with a higher ABV that this so I'm not claiming inexperience on my part. This was just a harsh taste that I couldn't really get past. It definitely warmed you up on the way down and the plentiful carbonation played nicely on the tongue. Honestly, I couldn't finish this. The alcohol was just too abrasive for me. I gave it a fair chance though!

Buy it for the beer, drink it for the grain alcohol.

Heroes get remembered but Legends never die.

Brewery: Legend Brewing Co.
Location: Richmond, VA
Name: Oktoberfest
Type: Amber Lager
ABV: 5.4%
If I had to summarize this beer in one word it would be "clean." This is a straight up, tastes good in your mouth kind of beer. Pleasing all the way around from the pour to the finish, not a cross word I can say about it. At the same time, it doesn't blow my tongue through my skull, but it's good! Oktoberfest spills out from the bottle into the glass as a rich and vibrant deep amber color. The head swells up noticeably and is cream colored. As it dissipates you will not see any lacing on the glass. I don't know why but I always enjoy it when there's significant lacing on my glass. I like to see the "rest rings." The nose is what you would expect out of a classic fest beer: Malt. You may also pick some bread-like notes tied up with some yeasty tang in the bouquet as well. The taste is a symphony of malt, toffee, some roasted caramel and the slightest hint of earth. The aftertaste was mildly sour, I noticed. Overall, this is a great example of a crisp fest lager. It's 22oz. packaging makes it great for sharing too! Unless you're like me and see it as an opportunity for a twofer.

Not bad, not great. Would definitely enjoy again.