Hidden Punkins

Okay, like most people I look forward to the fall season, when pumpkins magically transform from garish "decorative" monstrosities avoided by nearly everyone to a ridiculously common ingredient in both decor and cuisine. Why? Pumpkin pie. And pumpkin cookies. And my personal favorite, pumpkin pancakes (thank you, by the way, random diner in Austin, for blowing my mind with your delicious pumpcakes - oh yes, pumpcakes). And yes, of course, if a flavor is able to be put in food, odds are some crazy person has taken it and stuck it in a beer at some point.

Luckily, pumpkin beers are generally fantastic. Unfortunately, Dogfish Head's Punkin Ale is not.

Rather than take advantage of the season to experiment with a flavor that is overwhelmingly ignored for the bulk of the year, Dogfish Head is clearly taking advantage of others' risks with a tame and ultimately very underwhelming seasonal brew. Essentially a subpar brown ale, the so-called "punkin" (which, by the way, is an adorable pronunciation to say aloud but should never be used in marketing something that successfully avoids being any kind of adorable in every possible way) exists only as a barely discernable aftertaste that causes far more of a "hmph." reaction than the likely desired "oooh!". When compared directly side by side with some of the other pumpkin-inspired beers of the season, this not only doesn't stack up, it noticeably disappoints.

As the unfortunate recipient of my lowest score yet (significantly, at that), I feel it deserves at least a few redeeming words. Taken exclusively as a brown ale, this probably would have fared slightly better, but it fails to stand out at all in that department. The "something special" that they've added does nothing but disappoint, simply because of the potential for it to be so much more amazing than it is.

It should also be noted that the $11 I paid for a 4-pack of bottles of this certainly did not help its cause.

Dogfish Head Punkin Ale
Overall Rating: 3/10