Beer: Spooky Tooth Imperial Pumpkin Ale
Brewery: Fat Head’s Brewery (North Olmstead, OH)
Style: Pumpkin/ Yam Beer
9% ABV / 22 IBU

Just what the pumpkin ale needed: an Imperial makeover. Turbo-charging the booziness isn’t an automatic win for every style, but it’s a bit of revelation in this imperial pumpkin ale; at 9% ABV, one of these bad boys hits almost as hard as a Russian Imperial Stout. Speaking of, since decorative gourd season leads directly into Russian Imperial Stout season and you’re bound to be spending the rest of the year in close proximity to your family, it’s time to get your liver back into fightin’ form.

Spooky Tooth Imperial Pumpkin Ale is a pretty great seasonal for a brewery known mostly for its well-balanced IPAs, especially since it’s such a malt-forward style. Here, the hops are mostly muted, employed for bittering and to up the acid content. But there is a strong yeasty, bread-like character to this beer thanks to the blend of seven different malts, including two types of Munich malts—which makes Spooky Tooth work as both a festbier and a pumpkin ale, basically a double-seasonal.

Props to the aroma, too. For those put off by the Pier One pumpkin spice candle smell of most pumpkin beers, Spooky Tooth smells like the pumpkin itself. Specifically, the familiar aroma of the inside of a jack-o’-lantern after you’ve scooped the guts out. Spooky Tooth sacrifices a bit of the creamy mouthfeel that you are accustomed to with some of the more well-known pumpkin beers, but it really hits its marks with drinkability and its attractive deep amber color. Sweetness from the pumpkin is balanced out here with a bit of bitterness from the hops, less from the spice blend; Spooky Tooth offers tricks and treats.

For more info, check out Fat Head’s here.