Pumpkin Tasting

My first official beer tasting at my place was the Pumpkin Tasting in October of 2013.  This was planned to allow people to come and taste the great pumpkin beers the Fall season offers.  Pictured below are the group of beers that were included in the tasting.  

We had a decent crowd show up for the event.  Thankfully we made it through all of the beers. Most of these I had never tried.  Among the top rated were Southern Tier Pumking, Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale, and Shipyard Pumpkinhead. The two latter are very poorly reviewed online but were favorites for their strong pumpkin flavor.  Southern Tier Warlock is advertised as a Chocolate Stout/Pumking Mix but it tasted extremely similar to Pumking with just a darker color.  Many others had that watered down pumpkin flavor.  None really made me want to run out and buy another with the exception of the 3 I mentioned.  

This year for Fall beers we plan to focus on all Fall beers including Pumpkins, Oktoberfest and Harvest beers. I will update those results once we celebrate that event.

Southern Tier Brewing Co - Lakewood, NY

I have been living less than 2 hours from Southern Tier Brewing Co and have yet to visit..until now.  It was a Saturday with rain outside and nothing else to do so we took a ride.  It is out there...a lot of farm land and whatnot, tucked away on a little quiet side road. Once we got there we realized Saturday maybe was a bad choice since it was slammed.  They have tons of parking which is nice, although it's awkward parking...a lot of the spots are a long a straight line so get your parallel skills ready!

-From the outside the place was massive and looked really nice. In the backyard they have some type of lawn game you can play and also tons of tables with live music.

-Upon entering you see a decent but kind of small taproom with a small bar and a LONG line.  We grabbed a table that just emptied and I waited in about a 10 minute line to order my samplers. The way the ordering process is set up is just a little weird because it's a small L shaped bar but you had a couple locals hanging out like it's a bar at one side and then confusion on the other side.   We also wanted to order lunch and they only serve 2 things...pulled pork and lobster bisque.  Well they were out of food and would have more in about 20-30 minutes...this upset us since it was 2:30pm and we hadn't eaten a bite yet planning on eating here. 

-As for the beer we had Steve which was light and nice, 422 not bad, IPA is good, Double IPA is real nice, Live is really hoppy and I like this one a lot, Unearthly is smooth, Iniquity Black IPA was good, and Double stout has a good after taste and wasn't bad overall. I've had most of their beers in bottles, unfortunately they didn't have either of their best beers which are the Pumking (best pumpkin beer I've ever had) and the Chokolat (best choc stout I've had).  Most their beers are good, not great, but those 2 I just mentioned are top notch if you get them at the right time. 

-Overall it wasn't a horrible experience..but it was over an hour drive, no food to eat, crowded line to wait in, but again it was a Saturday afternoon and being to over 100 breweries I should know that on a Saturday a good brewery will be packed. They have a merch area with a good amount of stuff..some of it overpriced I thought. If you have the time though they're def worth checking out...www.stbcbeer.com/‎