Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela No. 1 Pumpkin Ale

Brewed By: Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales in Dexter, Michigan  

Purchased: 750ml bomber bought at Jolly Pumpkin in Ann Arbor, MI; 2012

Style/ABV: Spice/Herb/Vegetable (Pumpkin), 5.9%

Reported IBUs: ?
Blend 6, Bottled 09-06-2012

Nothing like a Pumpkin beer in February, right? About Jolly Pumpkin:

Jolly Pumpkin has three enterprises: a restaurant, brewery, and distillery located in Traverse City; a cafe and brewery in Ann Arbor; and a factor for their Artisan Ales in Dexter. The brewery itself was founded by brewmaster Ron Jefferies. Ron began brewing professionally in 1995, and quickly became known as a respected brewer among the Michigan craft beer scene. In 2004, Ron opened Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales. Jolly Pumpkin is known for brewing beer that is aged in wine barrels containing brettanomyces. Brettanomyces is a naturally occurring yeast that is typically unwanted in beer because it imparts a "sour, leathery, barnyard, horse funk" profile. When used properly, beers made with brettanomyces can have desirable flavors. These flavors are often found in Lambics and Geuzes, and more recently in American Wild Ales.

If you check out Jolly Pumpkin's La Parcela page, you can see that this is a beer is brewed with real pumpkins, a hint of spice, and a "gentle kiss of cacao." Clocking in at 5.9%, this beer is aged in oak barrels and is bottle conditioned, like all Jolly Pumpkin beers. The bottle says:

"OK, so the joke was Jolly Pumpkin doesn't brew a pumpkin beer. Well, now we do. Just this one. Packed with real pumpkins, hints of spice, and a gentle kiss of cacao to liven the soul. An everyday easy way to fill your squashy quotient. Guess now folks will have to find something else to joke about..."

Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela

Let's glass this up and see what's going on. As per usual with Jolly Pumpkin, or any bottle conditioned beer...open with caution. And this one didn't gush. Yay. This one pours a dark orange/light brown color, and looks sort of like swampy cardboard. I kicked up two finger's worth of slightly amber-tinted, creamy head. The head is surprisingly creamy for the style, and sustianing nicely. In bright light, the beer is a juicy orange color, and the head is white. There is a ton of carbonation in this, with pillars of small to medium bubbles rising on the sides of the glass, and a storm of carbonation rising in the center. Honestly, it's probably the glass, but this beer looks like sex. There's some nice lacing as well.

The aroma is tart sweetness, tart fruits, and Brett funk up front. I'm getting some barnyard, leather, and mild horse blanket/butcher shop funk. I'm also getting some pretty nice tart pumpkin, and it's manifesting as pumpkin seed, and rotting Jack-O-Lantern. As far as comparable beers go...this reminds me of the New Belgium Kick and the Shipyard Smashed. There's a dash of nutmeg, cinnamon, and pumpkin spice on the nose, a dash of wood, a dash of hop kick, and various fruity aromas from the Brett. The nose is also slightly tannic, and is reminiscent of a wine. Very complex stuff. The only thing I'm really missing on the nose is the cacao (unless it's coming across with the slight oak/wood?).

Dat Carbonation

Superbly interesting...this starts out super bright, tart, and a touch acidic, with berries, tart pumpkin, and fruits. It's very wine-like, with tannic/assertive oak. The middle rolls into buttery oak, with big woody oak, white wine, goose berry, pumpkin seed; the back end mellows out hard, with lingering sweetness, wood, dryness, and mellow malts. Maybe a dash of cacao, and a dash of nutmeg/cinnamon. Bright, tart, fruity, tannic, wine-like, slightly spicy, and a dusting (literally) of dusty cacao; fade to dry.  

This is very complex with outstanding palate depth. At 5.9%, this is also incredibly easy to drink. This is quite tart, with maybe a dash of sour lemon. The whole thing is supported by pretty snappy/sharp carbonation, and there's quite a bit of it. I'd say this is medium-light to medium in terms of mouthfeel, and the finish is dry. Up front is tart, fruits, burgeoning oak; the middle rolls into big oak, wood, white wine, berries, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin, dashes of nutmeg and cinnamon; the back end fades to a dry, oaky, white wine finish, the whole thing sweetens up, and you get a dash of dusty wood/cacao. The oak is a brilliant character in this beer, and the whole thing has a white wine thing going, with buttery oak. 

Rating: Divine Brew

I'm feeling a Light Divine Brew on this. I'm not sure how to rate this, because what exactly is this? A wild pumpkin ale? I'm not really rating this with style guidelines in mind....I'm just going with my feels. And my feels are this is a really complex, standout beer. My feels also love oak. This is somewhat delicate, and might get lost in a flight of other Jolly Pumpkin beers. But it's also quite nice...and the slight tartness, berries, hint of lemon, and buttery oak...it all screams for strong cheeses, grilled calamari with butter, or a buttery pasta dish with a rich white sauce. My bottle was bottled a few months ago. I would drink this fresh, because once the oak, pumpkin, cacao, and spice drop out...you're just left with another funky Brett beer. I would pick this up again, fo sho.

Random Thought: I'm a pretty big sports fan. I watch the NFL in general, baseball (go Sox), the Bulls...and over the past year or two, I've been listening to a lot of local sports radio. As a result, I've sort of been sucked into hockey, which is pretty awesome. I know I'm band-wagoning pretty hard, but go Hawks.