Over the course of the last few years pumpkin beer has been all the rage and the simple fact is that the market is incredibly beyond capacity. With any brewery ready to reap incredible rewards by creating their own gourd-based beer it seems that every other effort that one sees in the fall season has something to do with pumpkin. As a result a great many of these are forgettable and it takes a beer that is absolutely sterling to impress in the style.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Lakefront Brewery has created Imperial Pumpkin, a fall seasonal that successfully navigates many of the pitfalls that are present when a brewery decides to include pumpkin into their products. The Imperial Pumpkin is a heady blend of flavors, has a hot alcohol flavor and just enough in the way realistic sour pumpkin taste to make the effort top-tier. Fans of overly sugary, pumpkin pie types of beers may not find shelter here in that this is an accurate representation of what a pumpkin tastes like. This turns the effort from a spice-heavy product into a fruit beer; using pumpkin in such a way makes this into something special. Lakefront’s Imperial Pumpkin is available for a limited time and should be sought out by anybody that wishes to have something substantially different then what typically clutters up the shelves from August all the way out till about January or February. The smaller sweet elements that do become active as the beer continues to reach room temperature is just enough to have an imbiber finish the beer as strongly as they began it.
We have reviewed other Lakefront offerings in the past, including a brief look at Todd; for additional information about the full array of Lakefront’s beers, give their website a go.
Rating: 8.0/10
Imperial Pumpkin / Lakefront Brewery Inc / 9.50% ABV / http://www.lakefrontbrewery.com/ / https://twitter.com/lakefront/ / http://www.instagram.com/lakefrontbrewery