Pumpkin Beer Taste off in the works

A few years back, I put together what I thought was a fairly comprehensive blind pumpkin beer tasting.  While we reflect for a moment on what a blind pumpkin is, this year I have gathered the ammunition to revisit this event, only this time the number of pumpkin beers available have reproduced exponentially. So here is the working list for what some friends and I will be comparing this year:

Smutty Nose Pumpkin Ale

Lakefront Pumpkin Lager

Harpoon Pumpkin UFO

Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale

Elysian Night Owl

Fegley's Devious (the clear winner of the least contest)

Blue Moon Harvest Pumpkin Ale

Post Road Pumpkin Ale

Sam Adam's Harvest Pumpkin

Shipyard Pumpkin Head

New Holland Ichabod

Wild Onion Pumpkin Ale

Dogfish Head Punkin

Southhampton Pumpkin Ale

Long Trail Pumpkin Ale

Uinta Punk'n

Shock Top Pumpkin Wheat

Avery Rumkin

RJ Rockers Gruntled Pumpkin Ale

Cisco Pundle Drumkin

Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale

River Horse Hipp-o-Lantern

Saranac Pumpkin Ale
Flying Dog The Fear Imperial Pumpkin Ale

Southern Tier Pumking

Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin

Timmerman's Pumpkin Lambicus

Rock Art Pumpkin Imperial Spruce Stout

Elysian The Great Pumpkin

Elysian Dark of the Moon Pumpkin Stout

Sam Adam's Fat Jack

Heavy Seas the Greater Pumpkin Bourbon Aged Imperial Pumpkin Stout

I guess that will be enough, but I'll continue to be on the lookout for additional contestants. I also have a few aged Weyerbacher Imperials, despite having sworn off aging them after the last contest. I'm aiming for a mid to late November date for the event, but meanwhile there's a corner of my cellar packed to the gills with pumpkin.

Happy Anniversary, Drink Philly

It's been a god year for Drink Philly founder, Adam Schmidt. Not only did he get married to his lovely bride, Amanda, but Drink Philly is celebrating one awesome year. See you all at First Friday this week for some Alex's Lemonade Moonshine and Khyber sliders.

And definitely check out Adam on CBS Talk Philly

Making new beer friends and staying dry

I'm about a month and a half late on this, but here's what writing a Beer-off between Rude Elf and Mad Elf eventually led to. Randy LoBasso of Philadelphia Weekly wrote up a nice article about his visit to Des and my place a few months ago, after using some hilarious quotes from one of my DrinkPhilly articles last December. Hey Randy - don't bail on next month's DrinkPhilly First Friday!

By the way, check out his article about how the 'Statewide Ethanol Nightmare' may soon be coming to an end, and be sure to read how the Statewide Ethyl Alcohol Nightmare may soon be coming to an end.

By the way, I've been beer-free for almost a week, for no really good reason, although this Insanity workout my wife is making me do (just kidding, baby, I'm having tons o fun) probably has something to do with it. But I see a really nice light at the end of the tunnel with TJs Scraps party this Saturday. They'll be packed with beer geeks for this event (I'm looking at you, Slap-E!) They have a keg of Parabola that's not on the taplist, so I'll be keeping my eye on their Tweets for that one!