Avery Rumpkin vs Avery PumpKYn

Last fall, Avery released two whopping strong barrel-aged pumpkin beers.  One of them, Rumpkin, they have made every year since 2010.  It's a pumpkin ale, presumably with an amber ale base, aged in rum barrels with pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger.  The other, Pump[KY]n, was brand new to 2014 but looks to be an annual release every fall.  It's an imperial porter/stout aged in bourbon barrels with pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves (the "[KY]" in the name is for Kentucky).  Amber ale vs porter and rum barrel vs bourbon barrel should make for an interesting comparison every year.  Call it Pumpkin Combustion 2.0.

Here's the kicker: each one is over 16% alcohol.  Rumpkin has varied from batch to batch, but the 2014 I had was 16.73% alcohol.  Pump[KY]n, hereafter Pumpkyn, was 17.22% alcohol. 

Like most porters, Pumpkyn's appearance is easy to describe.  A thin collar of bourbon-colored foam sits astride a thick body as dark as night, with fine yet slow-moving bubbles rising to the surface.  Rumpkin's appearance is red and opaque; its head is as small as Pumpkyn's though quicker to form.  Rumpkin might have a little more carbonation.  Rumpkin's color does not show up very well in my photos unfortunately; Pumpkyn is hard to miss.

Pumpkyn

Rumpkin

Many pumpkin beers are impossible to tell apart by smell alone; not in this case.  Unlike a certain pitiful pumpkin porter I reviewed recently, Pumpkyn clearly shows its porter base in the aroma.  Upfront smells are molasses and whiskey, not unlike Bourbon County Stout.  Scents of nutmeg, allspice, chocolate fudge and cinnamon follow in decreasing prominence.  I could not definitively tell it was aged in bourbon barrels, but it certainly has a whiskey aroma.  By contrast, Rumpkin easily gives away its rum barrel in the aroma.  Rum candy, butterscotch candy, caramel candy...yeah, lots of candy in the smell.  Additional suggestions of nutmeg, pumpkin, apples dipped in caramel and toffee waft out of the glass.  In both beers, the spices play second fiddle to some other element.  Overall, Rumpkin smells much brighter than Pumpkyn and also smells much more strongly of its barrel, while Pumpkyn smells more like an actual beer. 

If Goose Island was to release a Bourbon County variant that was brewed with pumpkins and pumpkin pie spices, it may very well taste like Avery Pumpkyn.  Pumpkyn lacks the more prominent vanilla flavors of Bourbon County and it's not as smooth as the best batches of that beer, but it's damn close.  A bright flash of booze starts things off like a shot across the bow, warning you this 17% beer means business.  Whiskey and chocolate barley peak through next, with the whiskey getting more prominent after a few swirls around the mouth.  Molasses also becomes stronger with a bit of swirling, and Pumpkyn finishes on a fiery note of booze, whiskey, and cinnamon.  Throughout all this, pumpkin and most of the other spices get lost in the barrel and the base beer.  I spent a good hour slowly sipping this beer, and the longer it warmed up the more it reminded me of Bourbon County; the molasses flavor in particular became stronger as it warmed, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Bourbon County.

As the aroma portended, Rumpkin tastes much more strongly of the rum barrel it was aged in than Pumpkyn tasted like bourbon.  Also like the aroma, it's candy sweet.  Rum candy starts off the show before segueing into apples, caramel, nutmeg and pumpkins galore.  By mid-palate the rum barrel and barley malt dominate, with a bit of pumpkin on top.  The malted barley takes on a caramel-dipped apple flavor here.  The finish offers a brief reprieve from the sugar high, in the form of a pleasant warming campfire of rum, ginger, and pure ethanol.

Though both beers are sweet, neither is syrupy-thick.  Rumpkin is the sweeter of the two but I think that's more from the rum than from having a sweeter base beer, as Pumpkyn is clearly the thicker of the two.  Neither is cloying but Rumpkin comes closest in its candied decadence, being balanced largely by alcohol warmth and an almost excessive amount of ginger in the finish.  I don't want to give the impression that these are easy to drink, but I must say they don't burn as much as I feared they would.  They have pleasing alcohol warmth, not a cheap liquor burn.


So, which is king?  For me it's definitely Pumpkyn, for a few reasons.  For one, the resemblance to Bourbon County was a pleasant surprise, as I greatly enjoy that beer.  That it managed to do so without being overpowered by the bourbon barrel like so many similar beers is a huge plus in my mind as well; here, both the barrel and the pumpkin pie spices play a secondary role to the beer.  It also helps that this completely blows away every other pumpkin stout or pumpkin porter I've tried, though in fairness that's a pretty small list. 

The only real complaint I have against Rumpkin is gets too sweet the warmer it gets, at least for me.  It is perfect to split with a friend, however.  I do enjoy the rum barrel, and I would love to see more beers aged in rum barrels after trying this.  Ultimately, this tastes more like other pumpkin beers, just sweeter, stronger, and with rum. 

All in all, two fine pumpkin beers that both greatly exceeded my expectations.  Years ago, when I first started getting into craft beer, Avery's stronger beers had a reputation for being overly boozy messes.  Either that was undeserved or they have stepped up their game since then.  These are both worth seeking out next fall.