Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin (Pugsley's Signature Series) 9.0% ABV

It was time. Enough of this cat and mouse charade.

Pulled from the very back right of my refrigerator. A spot reserved for only the finest and most storied beverages. Your cap surrounded in a shroud of golden foil, off it goes; removed with needless care. The murky libation splits evenly in two pints. One for me, one for my best girl. She would sip, but I would sample and savor. Pumpkinhead is here, I can sense it, but we have company. There's a sweetness that betrays a great and wonderful ABV. And absent Pumpkinhead's watery finish there is a peculiar parting bitterness. It begs another taste. And another. And a third. And I've finished. And I'm already asking if we can go to the store and get more. Inspired and insistent, I can feel the surge of emotion; I'm pleading as a child would plead for a gumball or a quarter for the horsey ride. Can we please. Please. I know where to get it. But in no shape to drive, there will be no horsey ride. Horsey ride denied. Not tonight.

They next day I rushed to the only place I knew to find it, and after months of patient stalking, there they were. Dozens of them. Dozens. A miracle. The miracle I have waited so long for. Feigning class for a moment, I discarded all tact and brought an armload to the counter. At long last, Smashed Pumpkin is mine. The magically potent orange trophies are mine. Truly everything Pumpkinhead could be, if it only tried.

Giddyup.

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale

It seems everywhere you go these days, pumpkin flavored items are all the rage. Every brewery around is milking the sweet teet of our orange autumn friend. Its only a matter of time before we see Turkey, Gravy or Cranberry Sauce flavored beers. Then it will all digress into a messy giblet flavored beer; the edible offal of a fowl, typically including the heart, gizzard, liver, anus in a cheery toasted hops and malty concoction. Yes I'm calling that one now.
Capping off a month long all things pumpkin binge, I've finally found the holy grail of "pumpkin" beers. That beer could only come in the form of Dogfish Head's aptly named "Punkin" ale. If you're a follower of hillbilly triathalons and backwoods smithies then you'll recognize the spelling of this beer is a homage to the greatest event on earth, Punkin Chunkin. That event in itself a walking billboard for ridiculousness, similarly so is this beers goodness.
You can pick up Punkin in a 9 dollar 4 pack just about anywhere that sells good beers. I scored mine up at Bunnies, and shared it with my dad. At 7% after two I had a nice light buzz associated with a higher ABV beer. The taste of this beer is unassuming, a distinct brown with solid flavor. Dogfish didn't even bother trying to make the beer taste pumpkiny, they just brewed with pumkin meat and the end flavor is what you get. Get some now, or be a looser and wait for some Sam Adams Giblet Stout.

Samuel Adams Coastal Wheat (huh?)

Hey you like Sam, you don't like Sam. Personally, I'm a big Boston Lager fan - if it's on tap & super fresh, there's nothing like it I think. But generally I'm not overly enthusiastic about everything they make. Across the lineup it's just ok for me. Cherry Wheat though - f*cking terrible.

Anyway.

Coastal Wheat just hit the streets. It's excellent. It's lighter bodied than typical Sam fare, and the lemon is really more of a hint than an outright flavor. It's not the overwhelming, almost dry grain of paradise taste, as found in Summer Ale. I actually think this could and should replace the traditional summer offering. I guess I wonder why we're seeing it for the first time...in October.

Oh, but the name. Oh I know precisely where it came from. It came from one of the many surveys Sam sends out. I got that survey. As most of their surveys do, it pissed me off to no end. I really tried to finish it, but the damn thing went on forever, offering the same exact choices, using slightly modified iterations of the same exact question again and again and again until my f*cking eyeballs bled and I begged the internet and any listening deity for mercy. 'Coastal Wheat' was one of the choices; as I remember, one of the worst. My guess is that no one actually completed the survey, Sam put the choices in a lotto drum, and this is what came out.

So ignore the name, label, everything on the outside, and enjoy this little bit of summer in October.