Two Types Of Beer Are Still Severe

Update the Third: Mill St. Nightmare on Mill Street and Stack Brewing Last Bite

This is a longer time coming than planned, but after a very strange few days of alcohol seeming undesirable, I'm back on the pumpkin beer with the annual batch of Nightmare on Mill Street and Stack Brewing's much-anticipated Last Bite. On hand to precede each sampling, as always, is my baseline pumpkin-spice booze, Growers' Pumpkin Spice Cider. It has yet to get any better.

Somewhat belied by its colour (a deep copper to rival Citrouille), Nightmare on Mill Street is a wheat beer, lighter and sharper than most of the others sampled. While the flavouring strongly conveys pumpkin pie and ice cream, the brew has the texture and bite of a pure dry ale. This leads to something of a flavour overload, as the malt and hops of the beer and the sweet aromatics each seem amped up to compete with the other. Where the savoury-sweet heft of a dark ale or porter is more complementary to pumpkin spicing and the heady perfume of vanilla, the contrast here escalates to a conflict. One thing Nightmare on Mill Street is not, though, is excessively sweet - the bitter wheat-beer finish ultimately cuts through the other tastes, chasing out the vanilla musk with lingering clove and hop.

For all its messiness, there are some really good taste combinations in here. Mill Street has been on kind of vanilla kick lately, and I can't say I object - other than chocolate (and, of course, hops), you'd be hard-pressed to name a flavour that combines as well with malt. Their Vanilla Porter, a much darker, thicker and malt-heavy potion, does a much better job of demonstrating that harmony - on top of pumpkin and a six-spice blend, it's kind of unnecessary.
You can't dispute Mill St. has the "Halloween beer" look pretty much nailed  - the label is relatively light on artwork but gets straight to the point, featuring a flame-engulfed, smirking jack-o'-lantern front and center. If one was going to hand beer out to trick-or-treaters (Fun Fact: Expensive and probably illegal. Do not do.) this would be the only way to go. It's even fun-sized, packaged in 355 ml. bottles where most of the other pumpkin beers available are in 500 ml. portions or larger. And of course, when your brewery has "Street" right in the name, you'd have to be fools not to run with the handle they did.

As the keen-eyed will deduce from subtle changes in the background, I had a couple days downtime between beers. I was too tired to properly appreciate novelty beer. With what a bottle of Last Bite costs, I really felt it prudent to wait until I could fully appreciate it, thus justifying $8.50 a bottle as "working on my writing". In the meantime, I've been sustaining myself on mugs of lime-and-sherry grog (which tastes like something an old lady would rub on her back).

My usual Cool Table has been abruptly replaced by a cheesy plastic chest of drawers - this is due to being completely hijacked by my Halloween Mood Table (thanks, Dinosaur Dracula) - a rare moment of seasonal spirit. Also, it's a chance to indulge in a timely parody of "college me" with my 35th birthday looming. So many Buckethead CDs and Goldfish crackers. I should have some pics up soon enough.
Some real effort went into the Last Bite's label, which stands out even above Mill Street's flaming jack-o'-lantern and everyone else's...um...varying numbers of pumpkins. The art is an original work by Rob Sacchetto, who I was informed is a "a local zombie artist". It is absolutely awesome that "zombie" is now a genre. I demand that someone be crowned the Tom Thomson of zombies, or a least the Thomas Kincaid of zombies, posthaste. Unless they meant that he's a local zombie who IS an artist...which is actually even more impressive. Although in that case the role "Tom Thomson of zombies" is already more than adequately fulfilled by Tom Thomson's zombie.

Present at right, the familiar Growers. Had the camera been charged, the head on that glass of Last Bite would be even fuller - even in the minute and a half it took my ill-prepared self to get a snap, it held its volume and shape admirably.
Standing out from the selection of medium-bodied ales that make up this year's pumpkin spice offerings, Last Bite is a heavy, very full-bodied porter, and it definitely pours like one. Dark and dense, Last Bite foams up a tremendous and resilient head poured into a glass (an extremely cool glass gifted to me by my aunt-in-law), which stays in place for several minutes. Like a nitrogenated stout, it takes several small, sneaky pours down the side to completely fill a pint without overflowing it. Last Bite's body lives up to it's appearance, rich and robust with a husky, earthy stout taste, delivering the darkness of flavour that its appearance implies. It's only the aftertaste, though, that notes of spice really start to surface. The beer's subtly spicy scent suggests ginger and clove, but on the palate it presents itself as more of a general warmness - a contribution to what is overall a rich and satisfying brew rather than a dominant "flavouring". Pumpkin puree also appears higher on the ingredient list than most similar brews - and while I was unable to pick out an aroma and say "hey, that's squash" its presence is felt in the rich bittersweet flavour.

Stack made the right call using a porter for this flavour profile - a less dense beer would disappear behind the pumpkin, while an India Pale Ale base could entirely mute what's already understated spicing (and using Growers as a control, I have come to appreciate the relatively subtle spicing of the typical pumpkin beer - I really don't need to be beaten into unconsciousness with a cinnamon stick to get the point).

Depending on ambition, watch for part three sometime this weekend. Up next for review are the only other entry that's completely new to me, Tree Brewing Company's Jumpin' Jack, along with Grand River Brewing's Highballer Pumpkin Ale, the one with the train that looks sort of like a little DJ from the right angle.

Part One: Good Times Are Near With Pumpkin Beer