After tasting Orchard White we were excited to give the Black Orchard a go. This beer pours, unsurprisingy...black with big milkshake colored head. The aroma of this been is downright amazing with very dry chocolate with some mild orange followed up with a bit of dry spice from the yeast and wheat.
The description of the bottle really describes this beer well. It tastes a bit like chocolate cake and orange. It's a very interesting beer, and very drinkable. We tried it with a whole mix of friends who range from craft beer drinkers to just people who will dabble in trying new things and all enjoyed it. This is a great beer to prove that dark does not equal heavy when it comes to beer. While the flavors described above sound heavy the beer drinks much lighter and is one of the cooler beers we've tried recently, we'll be picking up some more of this to share with more friends.
Pairing Note: Paired very well with both espresso and candied ginger dark chocolate which we happened to have on hand.
Beer with lavender can be a tricky thing, a little too much and you get potpourri or soap; the right amount however can do some very cool things. This beer poured a hazy straw color with a HUGE foamy head made up of really big bubbles. Initially we were a bit nervous, the lavender is really strong up front, almost off-puttingly so. After the first sip it mellows and this beer really opens up. Nice bright yeast flavors come out of the beer and the wheat really complements this. While there's lots of lavender in the first sip the more you drink the more than flavor moves to the background. It's quite effervescent as well which makes it really refreshing. Overall a really interesting interpretation of a Belgian Wit and is quite delicious!
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. 
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.