Funky Pumpkin Spiced Sour Ale

Review Date 9/28/2016  By John Staradumsky

It used to be, in the early days of craft beer, that we all thought of pumpkin beers as holiday winter seasonals. OK, sure, they came out in fall (not August as they do these days), but hey, they were just in time for Thanksgiving and we always had some left for Christmas. You eat pumpkin pie during the holidays, don’t you? So why not drink pumpkin beer?

It was with that in mind that I picked up a bottle of Boulevard Funky Pumpkin Spiced Sour Ale in November of 2015. I socked it away in one of my beer fridges with the notion of drinking it that winter. Problem is, I never did, but not really a problem I reasoned; I’ll save it for Christmas in July. Except, well, I never got around to drinking it then either. Before you knew it, there I was in Total Wine picking up fall beers (Oktoberfest lagers and pumpkin ales), and I got another bottle of Boulevard Funky Pumpkin.

So, there it is. A vertical tasting of two years of Funky Pumpkin ensued and I’m here to tell you about it. First, though, a little about Boulevard Funky Pumpkin. The labels have changed between years, and though the 2016 label doesn’t tell you anything about the beer, the 2015 label does:

This isn’t your typical take on pumpkin beer. Hints of cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and ginger meet with a touch of tartness, mellowed by barrel aging. We then brought the funk with Brettanomyces for a complex, out-of-sight beer.

Ingredients from the website:

Malt: Pale malt, Munich malt, amber 50

Hops: Zeus, Magnum

Spices: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice

Other: pumpkin

Boulevard Funky Pumpkin Spiced Sour Ale has an alcohol content of 5.8% by volume with 28 IBUs. It runs $8.99 a six-pack in these parts, very reasonable indeed. My 2015 bottle is dated as best by 01/11/16, while the 2016 says its best by 16DEC2016. Let’s give them a whirl, shall we?

Boulevard Funky Pumpkin Spiced Sour Ale 2015 pours to a bright orange color with a medium sized head of spritzy, short lived foam and a tart sour nose laced with pumpkin and dry spice. Taking a sip, the beer is quite sour up front and you get nutmeg for sure and cinnamon, maybe clove and ginger. A bit of squashy pumpkin pokes through, and the sourness takes over in the finish and mixes nicely with the drying spices.

Boulevard Funky Pumpkin Spiced Sour Ale 2016 is more restrained, with hints of spice (but less of them) and a little less sourness. Taking a sip, the beer is definitely lighter in body, with less spice for sure and less pumpkin too. It’s a little more crackery wheaty and a little less pumpkin and spicy, almost cidery to a point, but again tart and spicy dry in the finish, though less so.

The 2015 has held up nicely and is definitely the better of the two in my opinion. I’m drinking on September 25th, well beyond the January suggested best by date. Yet the 2015 is bolder and spicier, even with age, than the 2016. Boulevard Funky Pumpkin Spiced Sour Ale certainly ages well. Then too, I wasn’t prepared for the difference in color, with the 2016 being much lighter in color than the 2015. Finally, I didn’t really get the Brett funkiness, just sourness. Likely the spices drowned it out.

I’d give Boulevard Funky Pumpkin Spiced Sour Ale 4 stars and the 2016 3.5, so that’s where I’ll peg the beer overall, but heck, at the bargain price I think back up to 4 stars it shall be.

And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.

*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.

(B)=Bottled, canned

(D)=Draft

 

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