Wild Onion Brewery's Pumpkin Ale

If you wanna look cool in front of your friends; crank the crap out of this!

So it's been as while since the last review but most importantly we are back in the wake of October to review everyone least favorite beers...Pumpkin beers.

I consider myself s bit of a connoisseur when it comes to pumpkin beers as drinking beers of all types is my job (which every alcoholic says). I've may have had a couple dozen in my day and, ultimately, my opinion tends to favor the guidance of Jay Sherman, "It Stinks!".

Pumpkins beers are as American as apple pie shots. Foreigners don't understand it and it's a huge marketing scam. Like pumpkin flavored anything was ever a good idea. Pumpkin pie is barely tolerable. Nonetheless, like getting into the Christmas spirit, I've jumped in with both feet into pumpkins beers and it will be a gut-wrenching month.

Nonetheless, let's continue.

Wild Onion Brewery, huh? Even if you are from northern Illinois this is not a brewery common to any Illini. They are "proud to be one of Chicagoland's first craft breweries" which is as special as my mom says I am. They make about a dozen beers which are as common as to run across as slender sorority sister; uncommon. They've been in the business since 1996. They chose the name due to the Potowami Indian's title "Chicago" which can be generalized as translating to "festooned with onions". They continue to grow and their shit can be found in 5 states in the midwest. I've never had any of their stuff before and, truth be told, just heard of them briefly before coming across this beer.

So let's talk about this beer, shall we? As the picture shows, it has a head smaller than Taylor Swift's and a dark, brown color. It has lightly less carbonation than your traditional ale as as cloudy as my sophomore year of college. It has a bittersweet scent and with a malty undertone. It has a half bodied taste that grabs onto the side of your tongue and leaves your mouth with a dry, better finish. The taste has traces of pumpkin and nutmeg but lacks in the sweet category, much like yours truly. It has an IBU of 21 and a ABV of 5.4% which is better than some of the crap out there.

Verdict? Well. I wouldn't get this again. No disrespect but it need a more full bodied flavor when drinking a pumpkin beer. Call me undeniably patriotic but I'm an American that feels that a couple of pumpkin beers should substitute a meal and I'm not getting it from this guy. I'd say the flavor its better than half the pumpkin beers out there but not enough to subject myself to another 6-pack of these guys (which I paid $9.99 for). Would I get it before something from Sam Adams or New Holland? Uh, yeah...? I'm not a n00b. Let's put it this way, if I was rolling in my 64 to a 'tay and stopped by the party store and saw this and some other crap. I'd get this because dummies don't know good pumpkin beers if it bit them on the nose. Also, because there really aren't any good ones. This one is better than average but leaves something to be desired.

Drinkability: 7/10
Taste: 6/10
Value: 6/10
Curb Appeal: 6/10
Would I rather eat pumpkin pie: Yes

Overall: 6.25/10

Breckenridge Brewery's Vanilla Porter

Breckenridge is back again.

Actually, this is our first review of Breckenridge Brewery. I feel I've drinken (drunk? drank?) a zillion of their beers in my old age and it's only now that I review it? Well, quite frankly, I'm more surprised than you.

So Breckenridge started up in Colorado by a knightly man, Dick Squire; which coincidentally has the same name as the coolest guitar I've ever heard of. Picture this, some dude started a brewery in 1990 in Breckenridge. Not a glamorous story but probably the most factual thing you'll read on here. It expanded in '92 and 24 years later can be found in over half the states in America and are at a 62,000 barrel a year capacity. And that's good enough to get the attention of Anheuser and his friend, Busch, who recently purchased the micro (turned macro brew). I hate those guys. Don't have a reason but I suppose that unfortunately makes me a bigot and, let's face it, after a couple of these, that won't bother me any more.

Moving on. They make 28 beers over there (until A-B moves them to NYC; home of the worst worst salsa). Six of these beers are around all year round and the rest, believe it or not, aren't. Go figure. This beer, the Vanilla Porter, IS available all year. When it comes to beers, Vanilla Porter are as unique as a philly cheesesteak truck in the City of Brotherly Love. That means they are a dime a dozen but that no reason to not like them. Who likes unique beers beer anyway? Not A-B!

This beer is darker than Darth Vader's doodie hole in a cavern in on Pluto and smells twice as nice. It's also got a tan, thick head (like my ex-wife). The scent (other than the Pluto thing) is a chocolatey, sweet aroma. The taste is a thick, full bodied flavor, with strong chocolate and nutty undertone. The 5.0% ABV printed on the label contradicts the website's 5.4% proclamation. It's a proclamation abomination! I trust anything I find on a bottle (or at the bottom of) so I'm sticking with 5.0 unless Dick Squire's ghost shows up and tell me different. Also, I think he's still alive.

Well, let's face it, Breckenridge has sold itself to A-B so it's stock is going to drop faster than Beiber's drawers at a Hunger Games premiere. If you hang out at a local gathering looking for mad props from the honeys and homies rollin' up hard and strong with a sixer of this (which you can get for a 10 spot) bitches be like, "whaa" and the homies, well friend, you tell me what the homies say. Hint: they don't "play" that.

Drinkability: 7/10
Taste: 8/10
Value: 6/10
Curb Appeal: 5/10

Overall: 6.5/10