When it comes to beer, there are none quite as divisive as the fall seasonal infused with pumpkin. Whether it’s an ale, lager, stout, or something else, pumpkin-flavored beer is either beloved and eagerly awaited or derided and despised, without much in-between. This probably has something to do with the phenomenon whereby pumpkin beers seem to either be lightly flavored with pumpkin and have just a hint of spice, and have just enough complementary flavors to even everything out, orrrr they’re the flavor palate equivalent of a pumpkin spice candy exploding in a beer can.
Regardless of how you feel about it, breweries all over the country release their versions every fall. That means that when late summer and early autumn arrive, there’s a veritable cornucopia of options for pumpkin beer almost anywhere beer is sold.
We found eight of these pumpkin-fueled brews and instead of simply kicking back and drinking them while we watched early-season NFL games and waited for fall to arrive, we decided to nose them, taste them, and rank them. Yes, we tackled pumpkin beer. Keep scrolling to see how everything turned out.
Today’s Lineup:
- Southern Tier Pumking
- Dogfish Head Punkin Ale
- Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale
- Elysian Night Owl
- Brooklyn Post Road Pumpkin Ale
- Schlafly Pumpkin Ale
- Two Roads Roadsmary’s Baby
- New Holland Ichabod
Part 1: The Taste
Taste 1
Tasting Notes:
Aromas of butterscotch, cinnamon, ginger, caramel malts, and a healthy dose of baked pumpkin greet my nose before my first sip. The palate was more of the same with ginger, cinnamon, vanilla, and sweet, cooked pumpkin taking center stage. Even with all of the various flavors, everything seemed to be in proper balance. Overall, a decent example of the style.
Taste 2
Tasting Notes:
Complex aromas of dried fruits, pumpkin, cinnamon, allspice, oak, and sweet caramel met my nose before the first sip. The palate is filled with flavors like raisins, vanilla beans, caramel, bready malts, and ripe pumpkin. It’s surprisingly complex and flavorful for a pumpkin ale. This one is something special for sure.
Taste 3
Tasting Notes:
This doesn’t smell like any pumpkin beer I’ve ever had. In fact, it barely smells like pumpkin beer. There’s maybe a hint of cooked pumpkin and some cinnamon, but not much else. Overall, a very boring nose. Drinking it revealed more muted pumpkin and maybe some cinnamon and nutmeg. While I don’t like overly spiced, sweet pumpkin beers, this one almost had no flavor at all.
Taste 4
Tasting Notes:
Immediately a parade of wintry spices hit my nose. Allspice, cinnamon, ginger, the whole game was there. But they left little to no actual beer or even pumpkin aroma to be found. The taste was more of the same with a cavalcade of spices as well as an overly sweet caramel flavor. Overall, this beer doesn’t know if it wants to be spicy, sweet, or even taste like pumpkin.
Taste 5
Tasting Notes:
This beer smells like you just got trapped in a closet filled with pumpkin spice candles at Yankee Candle. It’s heavy on cinnamon, ginger, and vanilla. But those aromas were so strong that I didn’t notice anything else. The palate is a little better with a decent malt backbone, but it was more of the over-the-top wintry spices like allspice and cinnamon. It was just too much.
Taste 6
Tasting Notes:
This beer literally smells like a pumpkin pie. There’s a hint of graham cracker, sweet pumpkins, fall spices, and maybe a little nutty sweetness. Sipping it revealed more biscuity malts, toasted vanilla beans, cinnamon, and more pumpkin. While it seems more like a dessert beer than a regular sipper, it’s a well-balanced, memorable seasonal brew.
Taste 7
Tasting Notes:
This beer smells like a pumpkin pie that was put into a blender and then mixed with a water beer. Allspice and cinnamon are dominant. The flavor is a different story altogether. While there are notes of cinnamon, pumpkin, and other spices, it’s all very thin, watery, and weak. This is one of the least exciting pumpkin beers I’ve ever tried.
Taste 8
Tasting Notes:
Another overly spiced pumpkin beer. The nose is dominated by allspice, cinnamon, and even a hint of pepper. No noticeable pumpkin though. The palate had more spices but also had a nice hint of fresh pumpkin flavor and a bit of malt flavor in the background. Still heavily spiced, but not uncomfortably so like some I’ve tried.
Part 2: The Rankings
8) Shipyard Pumpkinhead Ale (Taste 7)
ABV: 4.5%
Average Price: $9.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
This popular wheat ale from Shipyard out of Portland, Maine is surprisingly low in alcohol (4.5% ABV) for a pumpkin beer. It’s light, crisp, and brewed with Willamette and Saphir hops as well as Pale Ale, Whole Wheat, Munich Light malts, and pumpkin and spice flavors.
Bottom Line:
This is watery, thin, and surprisingly bland for a spiced pumpkin ale. It’s an absolute snooze-fest of a beer.
7) Schlafly Pumpkin Ale (Taste 5)
ABV: 8%
Average Price: $12.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
This is a surprisingly complicated fall seasonal beer. It’s made by fermenting pounds of pumpkin with brewer’s wort and sugar before everything is filtered with a spice infusion of nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. This is pumpkin spice to the maximum.
Bottom Line:
This is the type of beer for those fall fanatics who are obsessed with anything pumpkin spice. It’s loaded with everything you love. For the rest of us, it’s a no-go.
6) Brooklyn Post Road Pumpkin Ale (Taste 3)
ABV: 6.7%
Average Price: $10.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
This is one of the first pumpkin beers I ever tried more than a decade ago. This 5% ABV pumpkin ale is supposed to taste the way a similar beer would have tasted during colonial days. They do this by adding a massive number of pumpkins and spices during the brewing process.
Bottom Line:
Brooklyn does a lot of things well. Its pumpkin beer isn’t one of them. This beer is the capital of Flavorless City in the country of Bland.
5) Elysian Night Owl (Taste 4)
ABV: 6.7%
Average Price: $10.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
The most well-known of Elysian’s fall lineup, Night Owl is a pumpkin ale brewed with pumpkin puree and juice. It gets its spiced flavor from the addition of nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger. On top of that, the pumpkin is cranked up even high by the addition of roasted and raw pumpkin seeds in the mash.
Bottom Line:
This beer is all over the place. It’s over-the-top spiced, it’s weirdly sweet, and it doesn’t taste enough like pumpkins. I’m sure it has its fans. I’m just not one of them.
4) Dogfish Head Punkin Ale (Taste 8)
ABV: 7%
Average Price: $12.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Dogfish Head’s popular pumpkin beer is technically a brown ale. It’s brewed with real pumpkins, brown sugar, and various seasonal spices. It’s named for a Delaware fall event referred to as “Punkin Chunkin” in which people build contraptions to throw pumpkins as far as possible.
Bottom Line:
Still a little more spiced than I’d prefer, Dogfish Head’s pumpkin seasonal at least leans in the right direction. There’s slightly more going on with this beer than simply pumpkin spice.
3) New Holland Ichabod (Taste 1)
ABV: 4.5%
Average Price: $12 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Named for the protagonist in the Washington Irving fall classic story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” this pumpkin ale is brewed with real pumpkin, malted barley, nutmeg, and cinnamon. It was created to taste like fall in a can.
Bottom Line:
New Holland’s Ichabod is loaded with fall spices and fresh pumpkin, but it also has enough of a malt backbone to even everything out.
2) Southern Tier Pumking (Taste 6)
ABV: 8.6%
Average Price: $15.99 for a four-pack of 16-ounce cans
The Beer:
This bold, high-ABV imperial pumpkin ale is eagerly awaited every fall by its fans. Brewed with ale yeast, two hop varieties, two different malts, pumpkin, and spices, it’s been an autumnal favorite for years.
Bottom Line:
This is a complex, surprisingly well-balanced, bold pumpkin beer. It’s so flavorful you’ll want to go back to it again and again. Especially on chilly fall nights.
1) Two Roads Roadsmary’s Baby (Taste 2)
ABV: 6.8%
Average Price: $12.99 for a six-pack
The Beer:
Named for the iconic horror film Rosemary’s Baby, this seasonal favorite from Two Roads begins as your classic pumpkin ale. But the folks at Two Roads decided that wasn’t good enough as they aged it in former rum barrels to add a sweet, oaky, rich flavor.
Bottom Line:
This is the best of the bunch by far. It’s easy to add too many spices and make pumpkin ales one-dimensional. But this one has it all. Warming spices, dried fruits, sweet malts, and a nice pumpkin flavor.
Part 3: Final Thoughts
Pumpkin ales are really tricky. When done wrong (in my opinion) they can end up as overly-spiced, cloyingly sweet pumpkin soda-tasting garbage. When done right, they’re complex, balanced, and give you a great, warming fall feeling. The beers that landed higher on my list fall into the latter category. Bring on fall. I’m ready now.