Tribute beer alert! I didn’t know it at the time I bought it, but Straight to Ale Olde Towne Pumpkin Ale is a tribute beer. Here, Straight to Ale is going to tell you about it:

Brewed yearly as a tribute to Alabama’s first microbrewery since Prohibition, Olde Towne Pumpkin Ale was one of the now defunct brewery’s most popular recipes. Brewed with pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice, it is released in September.

So, there it is. Olde Towne Brewing of Huntsville seems to have been Alabama’s first operating microbrewery. I do remember receiving a few beers under the Red Mountain brand from Birmingham Brewing in the 90s via Beer Across America, but apparently those beers were contract brewed.

Straight to Ale Olde Towne Pumpkin Ale has no ABV listed on the bottle but the website pegs it at 5%. I paid $10.99 for a bottle at Sherlock’s in Kennesaw and that is my main quibble. This seems rather high for a 5% ABV beer.

Straight to Ale Olde Towne Pumpkin Ale pours to an orange amber color with a massive unruly head of rocky foam and a vibrant nose of citrus orange and dry spice. Taking a sip the beer has moderate chewy caramel malt at first followed by meaty, vegetal pumpkin notes up front followed by very dry nutmeg spice leading into a very, very dry spicy finish. A hint of vanilla pokes through too, and the beer is heavy on the clove, but the pumpkin comes out so nicely in this beer. In the end, the spice is more drying than robust in flavor.

In a way, this reminds me of another defunct “old” pumpkin ale, the Pumpkin Ale made by the Old Wyndham Brewery of Willimantic, Connecticut (they also brewed and bottle Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale for a time). For that reason alone I would buy it again, though perhaps less often at this price (and a half mug off for that high price as well).

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