Shipyard Brewing Co. - Smashed Pumpkin

I've been busy trying to get things done in the garage all evening, but I was sure to leave just a little bit of time to enjoy another pumpkin-flavored cold one. So let's fire up the Drunken Jackos rating scale!

Tonight, I'm trying Shipyard Brewing Co.'s Smashed Pumpkin.

One of the first pumpkin beers I had ever reviewed was Shipyard's Pumpkinhead Ale, way back in 2011. It reviewed favorably, and this beer is a bolder extension of that review.

Smashed Pumpkin, which clocks in at an impressive 9.0% ABV, pours a warm copper color with a full, carbonated head. An interesting, sweet pumpkin aroma is released and transfers over to first taste. It's subtle, which helps prevent it for crossing over to the "pumpkin pie" sweetness. That overall subtlety remains until a slightly dry, almost nutty aftertaste lingers at the end.

What really stands out is the smoothness of flavor, especially for a beer at this ABV. It's definitely one that could very easily sneak up on you and leave you with a... smashed pumpkin in the morning. And because of that, Shipyard Brewing Co.'s Smashed Pumpkin gets 3.5 out of 5 Drunken Jackos.

This is another recommended pumpkin beer. The subtlety is quite unexpected and is a pleasant surprise, making this quite enjoyable. Seek out the 4-pack of "tall-boy" cans with that great jack-o-lantern face on the label!

Shipyard Brewing Pumpkinhead Ale

Time for another quick beer review, group. Because what's prop-building out in the garage without a frosty beverage or two to keep you company? This time it's Shipyard Brewing's Pumpkinhead Ale from Portland, Maine. 

This one threw me for a loop right out of the gate because as it poured from the bottle, it was a lighter amber color than any other pumpkin beer I've tried so far. It's a pumpkin-flavored wheat ale, although the pumpkin flavor was somewhat masked behind the crispness of the wheat. This beer had a very crisp, somewhat spice-forward flavor with a slight nutmeg aftertaste. Overall, not a bad beer for the mid-fall prop building season. Pumpkinhead Ale gets three out of five Drunken Jackos.

Time to head back into the garage now, because I've got quite a few props that are almost completed and I can't wait to reveal them all here. Stay tuned! 27 days and counting!!

 

Scrapes, Halloween 1999

In my last entry I promised a review of my weekend trip to the haunted Lucerne Inn near Bangor, Maine. Truthfully, it was a long trip jammed into short weekend, and I simply didn't do my due dilligence as an investigative blogger. Instead, I enjoyed myself. After all, it was a cousin's wedding with an open bar. I was pleasantly surprised to see the Lucerne's bar stocked with Shipyard Brewing Company Pumpkinhead Ale.

And although I haven't raided Mom's photo albums, I do have a decent photographic record of my Halloween costumes since 1999.

While living in the college town of Kent, Ohio, I donned this look at a party my roommate and I threw. I was particularly proud of the burnout up the back, which I did by placing the shirt under the front wheel of my newly purchased 1989 Volkswagen GTI. The rest of the look consisted of various burns and road rashes, and was a hit amongst our party guests (or maybe "Wow, nice costume" was a polite precursor to "Dude, you live here? Where's the keg?").

It was my first experiment with liquid latex and toilet paper, and I was very pleased with the results.