I love September almost purely for the reason that it means it's Oktoberfest beer time. Wachusett Brewing Co. is a local favorite of ours. While they may get notoriety from their blueberry ale, their IPA is something we consider a bit of a secret gem within their portfolio and the more recent release of the Ryde, their rye beer, just adds one more tasty brew to the mix. I hadn't tried their Octoberfest yet though, and that needed to be fixed.
The beer pours a nice dark coppery amber with an off white head instantly releasing a nice aroma of sweet malt. First off, this is just a tasty beer. Sometimes that's really all I want to say, it just is really tasty, though since that doesn't help you out that much I'll elaborate. This beer is exceptionally drinkable. The malt backbone is smooth and delicate with a bit of roasty notes and just the slightest touch of sweetness. The finish is really what sold me on this beer though; just a bit of hops and more sweetness leave a very clean finish to this Octoberfest brew, something rare for the style. It's a bit less hoppy than some other American offerings and that just makes it even more drinkable. It would take little effort to have a few of these. Definitely give this beer a go if you see it.
We've always like Shipyard Pumpkinhead so we were intrigued when we heard about Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin. Smashed Pumpkin is Shipard Brewing's Imperial Pumpkin, and it's new for 2009. The beer pours a nice deep amber with a light head full of pumpkin and spice aroma. You can smell pumpkin and nutmeg right away almost reminiscent of pumpkin bread. At 9% abv you'd expect the alcohol to come through but it really doesn't. The malt and spices really help balance out the alcohol quite nicely. There's no doubt this is a big beer and it's definitely has an ideal temperature. When we poured the first glass right out of the fridge the spices were a bit too dominant and the beer just didn't feel balanced. After letting it warm up a bit though this beer opens up into something pretty special. A rich malty pumpkin sweetness finished off with dry nutmeg and a hint of hops. Fans of Southern Tier Pumpking and Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin should definitely give this a go. 
A reader recently noticed one of our stickers in the wild and used in a very cool way! Someone had cut our sticker up to make it fit their bike and well we thought it was pretty damn cool. So that got us thinking, how else can they be used? Well while we've certainly got some ideas we thought we'd put out a challenge to all of you. We'll be giving away 30 stickers for free all we ask is you send us back a picture of where you put the sticker. The best use of the sticker will win a special prize pack with some cool DrinkCraftBeer schwag.
We love Oktoberfest, there's few other holidays that deliver us so many tasty lagers. Victory Festbier has always been one of our favorite offerings of the season. This beer is really clean. The malt starts of slightly sweet and evolve with subtle toasty notes. A lot of Oktoberfest beers can have a bit of a lager funk at the end. This beer is just smooth and malty with a nice hop finish that you'd expect from Victory. Victory puts out some of our favorite beers in fact we drive down to Pennsylvania from Boston each year to go visit Sly Fox Brewing and the Victory Brewery. One of the greatest things about this beer is that it doesn't try and be some imperialized version or super hopped version; it's just an immensely satisfying beer with a great malt profile that makes you want more with each sip. 
We've worked with some great local bars to put on a killer event for a great cause. The pub crawl "Drink New England" takes the traditional pub crawl and puts a local craft beer spin on things. We'll be featuring a New England brewed beer at each stop of the 6 bar crawl. Even better you get to help a great cause, the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism. 100% of the profits from this event are going to charity. Good beer, good people, good cause, how can you go wrong?
We're going to cut to the chase on this one, it's good, really good. We'll be honest, we often pass over the regular Duvel bottles. When we're out we tend to get something on draught and when we go to the store it's generally just not on our radar. Duvel Green is a totally new beer though. Think of Duvel Green as the cousin of Duvel, while related there's a lot of differences. Duvel Green was made specifically for the US market. Now many times we hear that we get scared, but there's no need in this case. Duvel green is a draught only product with a lower abv (6.8%). 
We went to Sunset Grill and Tap in Allston, MA for a special release party for this beer. In addition to having Duvel Green on tap they also had a special menu prepared for us to sample. Anyone who follows us knows we're huge fans of beer pairing. This was a great way to really see what this beer had to offer. We tried the Duvel Green on it's own first. It was hot outside and we really wanted something refreshing...this fit that bill. While 6.8% is not a low ABV the beer drinks like it's less and the alcohol does not come through. The mouthfeel is light and the malts are delicate and not a bit heavy or cloying. Subtle hop notes finish the beer with a nice bitterness that doesn't wear on the pallet. In short it's pretty delicious. 
We decided to do a side by side comparison of Duvel and Duvel Green. Just smelling each beer you can tell there's a difference. Duvel packed a sweet belgian aroma with hints of alcohol while Duvel Green released spicy hints of the yeast and hop notes. On taste the Duvel has a much slicker mouthfeel which coats your tongue. Prominent sweet malts combine with a bit of booze and yeast.