Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin Review

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. 

As a quick side note this beer is excellent for cooking. I tossed some of the bottle in with some ground turkey,  zucchini, portabella mushrooms and caramelized onions and it added an awesome depth of flavor to a quick dish.