The Pum-King of Beers

When I was growing up, cranberry was the mixable fruit of choice. You couldn't turn your head in the grocery store without seeing some new product that was half-cranberry/half another fruit which would never be near a cranberry in nature. It was in our cereal, it was in our drinks and it was in our bread. This saturation during my formative years is probably the main reason the only time I want cranberry now is when it is in canned, jelly form and under a nice layer of my mom's gravy. And I gotta tell you, I'm starting to feel that same way about pumpkins. I don't know when or why it happened, but suddenly everything around here has to be pumpkin-flavored. You see it in all sorts of pastries and breads, but it is especially prevalent in liquids. If you don't want to have pumpkin-flavored beer or coffee people look at you like your head is on backwards.

Craft beers are the worst - everyone has a pumpkin brew and the servers at the bar can't wait to tell you how delicious it is. First off, it's beer - it's not supposed to be delicious. If beer was delicious then everyone would drink it all the time and we would be a nation of alcoholics who never got anything done. Beer being a little bitter is the main reason why people stop drinking it after a while. That lack of bitterness is what makes those fruity concoctions you get on vacation so dangerous: you can't taste the liquor over the fruit juice cocktail and before you know it you've had three without being able to tell how much alcohol is in it and you are hammered. We should all thank God those things are hard to make. (The fact that it takes a lot of energy to pull out the blender versus the bottle opener is the only reason some of my former co-workers ever made it in on time.)

Anyway, everywhere I go people tell me I have to try the pumpkin beer. So, because of this peer pressure I decided to try one the other night when I went out for beers with friends. I went with the Pumking beer, as it was the most highly recommended. I should have known I was in trouble when it was $8. Any time a beer costs more at your local pub than it would in Gillette Stadium, you should be punching out almost immediately. Secondly, the waitress told me it would be a couple minutes because they had to go and get the special glasses. Oh joy. Because we all know how much I enjoy it when a beer has to come in a special glass. Turns out this special glass was essentially a giant brandy snifter. Besides just adding to the spill factor every time someone bumped my arm, I'm not really sure how my drinking experience was enhanced. I guess it was meant to help me smell the pumpkin flavoring, but I couldn't smell anything. I mean, I could barely taste it. But, I'll admit that I did feel kind of cool holding this thing. All that was missing was a monocle and someone to discuss our latest shipping agreements with India.

I have to say, when the best thing about your beer was the glass it was in and I didn't want to use that glass to begin with, that probably isn't a ringing endorsement. I feel like I gave this beer a legitimate shot, but at the end of the day I really didn't see what the big deal was. I didn't even taste pumpkin at all. I believe the best kind of flavored beers are the subtle ones, which give you a hint of flavor but don't get over-powering. But this was so subtle that if you hadn't told me what flavor I was supposed to be tasting I probably wouldn't have been able to guess it. So, I think that will be my first and last try with pumpkin beer. But, the good news is that in a few years I'm sure some new fruit or vegetable will come along and be the hip flavoring of the moment, becoming part of every other food in its sight. I'm sure there are already people working on it. (I vote we go with carrots. Think of how great everybody's night vision would be!)