Sampled: Sept. 18, 2010
With a seven-mile run due in the morning, I decided to break my beer embargo after 10 days to sample the season's inaugural pumpkin ale courtesy of Saranac. It might still hit the 90s here on a regular basis, but pumpkin ale doesn't stick around long and rarely tastes appropriate once daylight savings ends. Saranac Pumpkin has a mighty nose of clove, cinnamon, and even vanilla flirting at the edges, within the bounds of pumpkin ale standards, but fresh and lively nonetheless. Cloves can easily submerge competing flavors in a beer (see Tremens, Delirium). Luckily Saranac blends it well with the other autumn spices to avoid such unpleasantness.
The pumpkin is balanced, not overwhelming; it presents itself as more of an expansive backdrop than a punchy, upfront blast of gourd. The deep amber body hides more hints of spice, especially the clove and cinnamon. The vanilla has the roundness of beans instead of the sharp corners of extract, and arrives on the finish. That prevents the pumpkin from blotting out the spices, and a few traces of spearmint add some ruffles to the vanilla.
Light and with little impact from hops or malt, Saranac has created a tribute to the gourd's role in harvest beer. In this fashion, pumpkin works effectively by not doing too much; in stronger ales, more pumpkin presence helps mitigate the alcohol content. Here, it works better in its supporting role.
A year might have passed since my last pumpkin ale, but ages have passed since I taste one with this level of complexity at a session beer's alcohol content. Highly recommended, it's another victory for the venerable Saranac brand from Upstate New York. The leaves are probably turning up there, and I could enjoy this pumpkin ale until they lose their green in Tennessee.
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