Jesus I love the suburban United States of America.  My passion for my alma matter’s football team found me in Raleigh, North Carolina this weekend to take in some of my favorite things:  football, grilling, beer, and supermarkets.  Those last combined led to the subject matter of this post; Halloween-inspired beverages.

As I roamed the spirits aisle of the local Harris Teeter, the packaging of several seasonal ales quickly caught my attention.  This is not an unusual thing, as I have always had an affinity for pumpkin ale (being so tightly tied to the Halloween and Fall seasons).  However, I have never seen such rampant abuse of the Jackolantern and Halloween imagery as I saw this day.

I was amazed to see so many pumpkin and fall seasonal beers in one place!  This is what Whitney Houston must have felt like her first time in an awards show green room after getting out of Rehab.  There were at least 7 or 8 varieties.  My first notion was to purchase every single one and do a taste test across the board, but when I thought about how that means I would be forced to drink 8 different pumpkin ales, I decided that would produce a biased review as I would probably be beyond sick of pumpkin ale.  So instead, I settled for purchasing the three brands that had explicit Halloween packaging:  Michelob’s Jack’s Pumpkin Spice Ale, Saranac Pumpkin Ale, and Red Hook Late Harvest Autumn Ale, which wasn’t specifically a pumpkin ale but a spicy seasonal ale.  The packaging sold me.  So this wasn’t really a pumpkin ale comparison, but a Halloween Ale comparison.

You know it actually would have made sense to buy 7 or 8 single beers, but Harris Teeter did not sell singles.  So instead I ended up with 3×6 of them.  Note:  it’s just as easy to drink pumpkin ales as it is to pound Coors Light.

I will judge the competition in 3 categories:  Initial impression, bottle appearance, and of course taste.  I will rate each category in measures of dead babies.  10 dead babies being the best.  1 dead baby being just plain sad.

Round 1:  Initial Impressions

I obviously bought these beers solely on the fact that advertising and marketing is a proven science in America, and these guys discovered some sort of formula that worked.

Michelob Packaging:  7.5 out of 10 dead babies

Just seeing the Michelob logo initially threw me off (not a huge fan), but I was quickly drawn to the Scarecrow figure on the package.  While it was a “Scare”crow, this benign figure was more iconic than fear-inducing.  Frankly, it looks a bit cheesy, but I love cheese.

Regardless, Jack sure looks like he’s happy about his pumpkins and presumably his ale.  I’ll give him a shot to prove himself.

Red Hook Packaging:  9 out of 10 dead babies

This was the second beer that caught my eye.  I have always liked Red Hook, so I noticed the logo.  But THEN I noticed the little friend hanging out on upper left corner … is that an owl?  Almost!  It’s a fucking SKULL OWL.

Absolutely badass.  Major points for the demon-owl.  SKULL OWL OWNS.

Saranac Packaging:  8 out of 10 dead babies

My third beer choice for the evening was the Saranac Pumpkin Ale.  I don’t need to explain why I got this one.

Plain and simple, black background with a fairly evil and sneaky looking Jackolantern.  And LIMITED RELEASE!  GET IT NOW! I am a total sucker for such packaging.

Score:

1. Red Hook:  9
2. Saranac:  8
3. Michelob:  7.5

Round 2: The Bottle

Fairly simple.  We all know how I feel about the outside.  Can these babies exude the same confidence and energy when separated from their brethren and comfort zone?

Michelob:  5 out of 10 dead babies

Boring.  The newness of Jack has already worn off.  Guess I will to chug this one, not stopping to admire the visual design genius.

Saranac:  7 out of 10 dead babies

Like the packaging, simple yet effective.  Look at that delicious beer sweat on the bottle.  MMMMM.

Red Hook:  6.5 out of 10 dead babies (my ability to operate a camera at this point was severely impaired).

Good enough.

Score after 2 Rounds:

1. Red Hook: 15.5
2. Saranac: 15
3. Michelob:  12.5

The Main Event: Taste Test

So now I was to the good part.  I had scrutinized, judged, examined, and probed these so-called beers.  Could they pass the real test?  I was beyond ready to find out.  As were my friends who were tired of hearing about my project.

Michelob:  3 out of 10 dead babies

“Oh yeah, this could end up being great!”  How the fuck do you think this turned out?  Good thinking Price.  A pumpkin beer produced by the same people who produce beer for athletes?  Tasted like shit, I don’t even think there was any pumpkin flavoring.  Some lame attempt at “spice” sure, but nothing more.  I would have saved a buck had I simply purchased Michelob light and sprinkled some cinnamon in there.

I should have noticed the “including nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and clove” on the packaging.  They forgot to mention piss and vinegar.

Saranac:  9 out of 10 dead babies

This one was fantastic.  A fantastic blend of pumpkin, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, ginger and vanilla.  My initial reaction would be “I want a beer, not a goddamn dessert”, but this was the perfect combination.

So 2 beers down, Michelob is the clear-cut loser.  Saranac has finished strong by tantalizing my tastebuds.  Can Red Hook keep the lead down the stretch?

Red Hook:  6 out of 10 dead babies

The answer is obviously a resounding NO.  This was essentially an IPA with a little spice sprinkled in, emphasis on little.  There’s the off chance somehow the bottling machines got confused and put the wrong beer in the wrong bottles, but something tells me that is not the case.  How disappointed did you think I was after seeing that package?  The Skull Owl is now dubbed the I Am a Huge Fucking Letdown Owl.  Bastard.

Final Count:

1. Saranac:  24
2. Red Hook: 21.5
3. Michelob:  15.5

Tags: beer, Booze, faceplant, halloween, not-wine

This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 10:01 pm and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.