We continue on our trek of enjoying pumpkin beers during the appropriate time to enjoy pumpkin beers. Fuck me. I realized this is the 2nd Rivertown beer we've reviewed (the other being Blueberry, which we panned). Rivertown puts out fantastic beer. I could have sworn we reviewed the Roebling, but apparently not, we'll have to make that happen soon. They recently posted on Facebook about going in a different direction in 2015, more sours and Belgian style beers, along with keeping the favorites.
Rivertown is out of Cinci, they, in my mind, are the only Rivertown. There has been another company named Rivertowne that has been distributing here since summer. I have yet to have any Rivertowne beer, although they have a pineapple beer that people tout about, but we're here to review this beer.
We mentioned this beer during the Blueberry review. We've had it before, and enjoyed it over the last 2 years (seasonally, of course), I don't know why it took us so long to review it. This pours a deep amber color with some off-white head. The aroma on this is pumpkin pie spices (cinnamon, nutmeg mostly, faint clove), sweetness (they brew this with molasses), and faint pumpkin. The flavor on this is what I want in a pumpkin beer. It's perfectly balanced between the sweetness and the pumpkin flavors without letting the spices take over. It's smooth drinking with a slightly malt sticky back end. The 5% ABV will allow you to drink more than one without doing damage and the balanced flavor won't wreck your palate to anything else you may be enjoying. You can still tell you're drinking beer without tricking your mind into believing you're enjoying a dessert.
4.6/5 caps
-Nathan-
Actually, I had Rivertowne (with an E) Pumpkin at a recent homebrew competition. One of the judges brought some, and his lovely wife shared it with me. Without doing a full review on that, as I'm here to enjoy another pumpkin beer by a similarly-named brewery, it was decent. I prefer this one. But apparently it was decent enough for me not to flag down Nathan or my other pumpkin beer-loving friends to share it.
This one is my go-to pumpkin beer. It's readily available in Columbus, and it's delicious. I always try to save some for Halloween night; it has become a personal tradition. Perhaps next year we will make our own pumpkin beer, but until we do that, I'll happily support the semi-local beer scene, or at the very least, the burgeoning Ohio beer scene.
This is a medium amber color with a little bit of barely-beige head remaining atop the beer. The nose on this is mostly nutmeg, with some pie crust (yes, you can actually smell some pie crust in this!), complementing cinnamon and just a hint of clove and even fainter pumpkin wafting past my olfactory nerve. The flavor is a bit more pumpkin-forward than the aroma, with the cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove all coming in and out of play as I drink it down. It's not overly sweet, unlike many pumpkin beers, and it is well-balanced as far as the pumpkin and spices go. The molasses lend a nice, dark flavor to the beer. It is nicely carbonated. The aftertaste is all cinnamon, once again.
In a horizontal tasting, I am not sure which pumpkin beer I prefer. The Schlafly was good, but a little "hotter" on the back end. This is more well-rounded to me. This one might have a lighter body, but not by much, and if you are drinking more than one, that's quite fine. After all those spices, however, my palate is pretty wrecked.
4.6/5 caps
-Jennie
Food Pairing: New York-style cheesecake
Cheese Pairing: A sage Derby
Music Pairing: "I Like It" by Foxy Shazam (also from Cinci)
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