3/22/2023 0 Comments Harpoon ufo pumpkinThey’ve made small batches of cider with different hops. A year and a half ago, they tried a Honey Cider. Harpoon has experimented with many variations of this cider. After two weeks of fermenting and cold conditioning, the cider is lightly carbonated and bottled. ![]() The cider is pumped into a fermenter along with some of Harpoon’s magical ale yeast. The fresh cider arrives at the brewery on a huge oil-tanker-like truck. All of the apples come from an orchard in Western Massachusetts. It’s on drier side, perhaps comparable to an applely white wine such as Riesling. Unlike many ciders such as Woodchuck or Citizen Cider, there are no added sweetners. If you like pumpkin beer, and you’ve never had one, you’re wrong. It tastes like deliciousjuicynutmegpumpkinamazingness. This beer, like the Imperial Pumpkin Stout, comes in 22oz bottles and is on the strong side, 8.6%. If you’re curious, my 1st place pumpkin beer is reserved for Southern Tier’s Pumking. Because this beer is partially unfiltered, the pumpkin flavor comes through much better than many other breweries’ pumpkin beers. The lack of filtration is also why this beer is so cloudy and hazy. The addition of some malted wheat gives this beer a great body. It has some spicy Tettnang hops that you should get on the finish, along with cinnamon and nutmeg. Pumpkin UFO is definitely a beer and sits solidly as my 2nd favorite pumpkin beer. After some very cursory online detective work, I can’t figure it out. To be classified as a beer, it must have hops. There is some confusion about whether Pumpkinhead is actually a beer or a malt beverage. While I do really like Shipyard’s Pumpkinhead, I would rate it as 3rd or 4th favorite pumpkin beer. Pumpkin UFOThis beer is a member of Harpoon’s fan-favorite UFO series, which stands for UnFiltered Offering. If you are like me and love really dark beers, you definitely need to try this one. Or save it for a Sunday evening to drink alone after your football team squanders a 14 point lead. You can’t really tell in the picture because the Pilsner glass is so huge, but this is a big beer. I would recommend cellaring/refrigerating this one a few months and enjoying it in late fall or early winter by the fireplace. This year’s batch is not as overwhelmingly molasses-flavored as last year’s was but it’s still sweeter than your average stout. I would recommend enjoying this one on the warmer side, maybe around 50 degrees. The pumpkin flavor is surprisingly subtle but definitely noticeable. It also has several dozen pounds of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice. Each batch also contains a few hundred pounds each of pumpkin puree and molasses. By comparison, Harpoon’s flagship IPA is made with about 3,300 pounds. Each fifty-barrel batch contains over 5,000 pounds of malted grain. Weighing in at a whopping 10.5%, this stout is not for the timid. If you enjoyed a pint of this last year, I helped make it. It is made exclusivity at Harpoon’s Vermont brewery. In the summer of 2013, I had the honor of working with Harpoon brewer Tom Graham on the very first batch of this beer. This beer holds a special place in my heart. Imperial Pumpkin Stout Imperial Pumpkin Stout If you’re looking for a really special pumpkin beer experience, look no farther than Harpoon, which has three offerings this fall. Blue Moon and Sam Adams’s pumpkin beers don’t even taste like pumpkin to me. How do you make a beer that actually tastes like pumpkin but isn’t completely overwhelming. The trick – as in all beers – is balance. While many people think immediately of Shipyard’s wildly popular Pumpkinhead Ale, they certainly don’t hold a monopoly. ![]() ![]() The lightly sweet flesh of pumpkins that grew easily in New England’s soil were a perfect adjunct. When the first European settlers landed in Plymouth rock, they needed something to add to their brew kettles to ferment for the long winter ahead. While they may seem like the latest craze, they’ve actually been around for a few hundred years. Pumpkin beers have become very popular in the last five years. While I love carving pumpkins, eating roasted pumpkin seeds and pumpkin pie, I love pumpkin booze even more. To me, it is the beginning of pumpkin season. It means raking leaves and wearing funny costumes and children under the effect of sugar-induced psychosis. It means the end of fishing season but the approach of hunting season. In Vermont, it means tourist season for leaf-peepers from Boston and New York. Autumn means a lot of things to a lot of people.
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