Beer Review: Oro de Calabaza from Jolly Pumpkin

So that's one of the glasses of Oro de Calabaza from Jolly Pumpkin brewery that I opened up (750mL bottle) and shared with neighbor Frank. They told us no pint glasses, should be a tulip.. but since I didn't have any of those, we opted for a red wine glass to work with. Not ideal.. but it'll do. This is technically a wild yeast/bug beer, but it's very approachable.. no real kick in the teeth sourness here. Noticeable, but not over the top. A real nice barnyard character as well. The bubbles were so extremely fine as to be in a class of their own. I've never run into a beer so finely carbonated like this that it actually felt like you were drinking a mousse or a whipped cream! Amazing stuff. The flavor was great right out of the bottle, but as the beer warmed up, it got even more pronounced. I'd suggest leaving this one on the counter a it before opening it up... let it breath for a bit. A really light, well.. golden/straw color fabulous to look at will be very clear, unless you flub the landing and slide some of the yeast from the bottle conditioning into your glass. Highly recommended, I'd suggest it with dinner instead of a white wine for a change.

Next up was a whole growler of Thomas Hooker brewery Nor'Easter, as supplied by our friend Timmay. No photo for this one, as we were in the midst of trying to culture the yeast/bacteria from the bottle of Calabaza at this point and got distracted... but a really nice beer. Went down pretty easy, and by the time we were finished with this whole damn thing, we were ready for..

Bud Light! Yup. We even drank it! It was left here from the New Years party, and by the end of that growler, we were ready for anything! So, we drank it from wine glasses as well! Looked weakly yellow, was fizzy, and tasted like a lightly sugary mess with no detectable hops. Just what we were expecting, I guess. In either case, it was still a good night. I'm not sure the yeast culturing experiment is going to work out or not... the half growler of wort I've got the sample in from the bottom of the bottle isn't looking so happy.. but we'll see what some time brings. Stay tuned!