R.J. Rockers' Gruntled Pumpkin Ale

Fall is in the air and that means a slight homage to pumpkin beers. Originally I was going to do a comparison due to the fact that I was caught off guard by their already being pumpkin beers on the shelves, then I realized its cause of where I live and its still ungodly warm and does not yet smell like fall is in the air. So I scratched my original idea to do a verses with this beer against my favorite pumpkin beer, Dogfish Head's Punkin Ale which shall be tomorrows topic unless I get really thirsty later tonight...both are possibilities. That being said lets dive right into the glass...

"The Gruntled Pumpkin planted the seed and started a revolution for all of pumpkin-kind. To guard the promising vines of the future that would eventually blossom to become the bottom of the barrel (and thats a good thing) of this new pumpkin ale."

As always, I pour the beer from bottle into the glass and judge the head of the beer which did not last long. The beer itself is orange, as any pumpkin beer should be, quite clear with no cloudiness and the head itself was white in color and quickly disappeared and left no ring of lace on top.

As far as aroma goes its nothing but pumpkin and spices, maybe a nutmeg but the pumpkin over powers anything that could try and escape into the nose.

For first taste its spices for me, the moment that ale hit my tongue I was surprised that its wasn't the pumpkin I was tasting. While it may overwhelm the nose to some extent in the taste department it was beaten. Now don't get me wrong, you will taste the pumpkin but its more mid sip and after taste where its subtle characteristics begin to come forth. Even with it hitting you hard at the beginning the spices will not back down and the will be there during the after taste which brings back memories of slices of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving dinner, not many but some memories. Its the spices that you will taste and remember when you think of this beer.

All in all this isn't a bad pumpkin ale. It will not be my first choice but not my last by a long shot. In the end it was the overwhelming spices that did it for me, when I sit back and drink a themed beer I want that theme to stand out no matter what it is and this just didn't do it for me in that regard. As an ale its good as a pumpkin ale it works which is why I am giving it a 3 out of 5.