First sip is like a slice of pumpkin pie with more spices and a hint of orange. Orange and pumpkin - I wouldn't have thought that they would go together, but that first sip wasn't bad at all. I imagine this would be great as a table beer with some relatively innocuous food like fried chicken or dry rub BBQ. I took a second sip, and I can taste a little hops in there, but not all that much. Maybe, just maybe, if I take a big mouthful...
Well, I can now taste where the hops were hiding. The tip-in is a bit of pumpkin and orange that flows into a smooth kind of void where the carbonation tickles the back of the throat. Eventually, the finish brings the heavy spice with a bit of grain and some underlying echo of the tip-in pumpkin and orange.
It's actually a pretty enjoyable beverage. I'm not normally one to add random stuff to a beer to try to make it better, but this is definitely a keeper. It's hard to believe that this one-off from Shock Top is their best beer yet, but here we are.
3.75/5