ABV: 5.8%
Style: Pumpkin / Yam Beer
Smashing Rumpkin 2015 Untappd Rating: 3.52 / 50
Out of Production
Description: Smashing Rumpkin pumpkin ale is different each year. The beer is a little different to the last, whether it be a change to the spices used, the variety or quantity of pumpkin, or the way in which rum is used to impart its rumminess. This year it happens to be a little of all of those. To start with, the amount of Jap pumpkin was increased and, rather than roasting it, they threw it all into the brewery’s enormous new smoker and cooked it through that way. The spice mix is no longer the authentic, upstate New York punkin’ pie recipe of yesteryear but a somewhat bolder blend; nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon still feature prominently but out went the coriander and in came star anise and clove. Lastly, they deemed the bold character of the old rum barrels to have died off a bit so, in their place, opted to use rum-soaked oak chips (plus a few extra glugs of spiced rum for good measure). If it sounds like a cacophony of flavours, that’s pretty much what it is. The smoke from the slow cooking method comes through on the nose (although no smoked malts were used), amongst all the spices the cinnamon really steps to the fore, the rum adds a good deal of warmth and it all sits astride that unique sweet and savoury pumpkin-flavoured base. As it seems to every year though, everything in the Smashing Rumpkin finds its place and comes together in an interesting way.

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