Coffee Pumpkin Spice Tasting

Having just opened my Saison and having it erupt on me (guess it needs another week or two to finish carbonating) this seems as good a time as any to review my Coffee Pumpkin Spice Ale.  The pumpkin ales were made with traditional coffee spice flavors, but this half of the batch had cold brewed coffee added at boiling time for an extra kick.

Appearance-  The beer pours a hazy orange brown with a thin but lasting head.  Looks about what I expected, but seems to have a high carbonation already with lots of little bubblings showing through

Smell- Whoo is the coffee there. It overpowers almost everything else with only traces of the pumpkin pie spice and a little hint of sweetness peaking through.

Taste- While that smell is a kicker, and not overly enjoyable.  The taste is actually an agreeable balance of spice and coffee with only a moderate amount of bitterness.

Mouthfeel- The best part of this beer appears to be the medium body and high carbonation which make this one bite at the mouth a bit but also seem to dance around after and fill every taste bud.

Drinkability- Pretty low really.  Its become the beer I go to if I just want one more or am trying to give someone else the better homebrews to sample.  While this is definitely drinkable, I would not buy it or try to make it again with all the spice and coffee being WAY too strong and affronting.

Overall- Not sure why I made this one.  I do love pumpkin pie and have tasted a few in the style I enjoyed, and I think the main reason I made a pumpkin ale was to show up another homebrewer who a friend had raved about (and seemed to enjoy my version better) but honestly that was not a good reason.  All of that being said the coffee version came out of experimentation and curiosity and I don't hate the fact that I tried it the way I did.  The pumpkin spice one actually came out much better without the coffee and I'll review that soon.  Hopefully these will lose some of the coffee and spice strengths with a little age and will be more enjoyable in a years time.  In the end at most there isn't a big loss as the real cost of this was probably near $20.