Yes, another pumpkin beer post, after Thanksgiving even! In my ongoing hunt for Oregon-brewed pumpkin beers, I was happy to find that Bend’s 10 Barrel Brewing not only brewed up a pumpkin ale this year—they did three, and recently were (and may still be) offering them on tap at their pub in a special taster flight for all three of them. So the weekend before the holiday we’d stopped in for lunch and I tried them out.

From left to right, that’s Big Ol’ Pumpkin, Rye Pumpkin Porter, and O’Pumpkin Fest. The first two were brewed by Bobby Jackson, and the O’Pumpkin Fest was brewed by Tonya Cornett (and made an appearance at Elysian Brewing‘s Great Pumpkin Beer Fest this year).

Here’s another shot, with the info sheet:

And here my quick notes on each (in the order I drank them):

O’Pumpkin Fest – Pumpkin Oktoberfest, 6% abv, 30 IBUs: It’s earthy and malty, with a touch of green squash character. Pretty easy drinking.

Big Ol’ Pumpkin – “classic” pumpkin ale style, 7.6% abv, 40 IBUs: Classic nose with pie spicing and sweet malty/brown sugar notes. Kind of an odd earthy bitterness—seems highly hopped (my wife thought it was brewed by Shawn Kelso, it’s that hoppy)—not sure how the spices work here with the hops, it makes me think of whole allspice berries.

Rye Pumpkin Porter – 8.5% abv, 40 IBUs: Nice porter with spicy rye notes blended with light chocolate sweetness. Touches of finishing spices, not overdone.

My favorite of the bunch was the O’Pumpkin Fest for it’s easy drinking and nicely mellow flavors. But if you get a chance to try any of these on tap you should definitely go for them all.