Well, this beer is an oddity. No, not as weird as Gran Gas; that was a
magnificently peculiar beer. This one is
strange in a way I don’t quite care for.
The idea itself sounds like it could be tasty and I do find myself
enjoying maybe half of the bottle. What
the Millstream Brewing Company from Iowa made here is a pumpkin imperial stout,
though not an especially big one. Until
recently, Iowa law forbade brewers from making and selling beer over a certain
alcohol content, around 6.5%. This was
recently changed, and Millstream decided to push their boundaries a bit with
this 7.6% stout—strong by most standards, but fairly weak by imperial stout
standards.
The problem? “Brewed
with artificial flavor.” That phrase is
rarely seen on beer labels, and I now I can see why.
As expected, the beer pours pitch black with fairly good
head retention. Smells like
chocolate-covered pumpkin candy mixed with cherry candy. The chocolate aroma has a milk chocolate
quality to it, not the aggressive dark chocolate imperial stouts are known
for. That is fine by me; to be honest I
wish more imperial stouts were on the sweet milk chocolate side of the spectrum. Unfortunately, that candied pumpkin aroma
(which is weird and fake) coupled with the cherry candy (which is weirder and
faker) makes it too sweet. I chose the
word “candy” earlier carefully; it feels very artificial.
The taste is even further out there, and worse. When it first enters the mouth I actually
think it tastes fairly good. Milk
chocolate and pumpkin flavor go together well.
Then comes a vexing array of fake pumpkin, rotting gourd, and cherry-flavored
cough syrup. Throw some stale coffee on
top and you get a real perplexing mess. What
the hell went wrong with this beer? Why
does a beer brewed with artificial pumpkin flavor taste like actual rotting
gourds were added? Where is that cherry
flavor coming from? There aren’t any
hops to balance the sweetness out either, and weirder still there’s none of the
traditional pumpkin pie spices. Nutmeg,
cinnamon, ginger, cloves—these could have provided some spiciness to balance the
sugar.
Yikes. Like I
said, a few ounces is fine. After that,
the mold-and-cherry-covered gourd sensation starts to overpower whatever stout
or pumpkin niceties there are. I’m not
sure if the vegetables-gone-bad flavor is from a poor fermentation or the
artificial flavor, but in any event fake flavorings are not a good idea in
beer.
