Harpoon Pumpkin UFO

Harpoon's UFO Pumpkin is the first of the pumpkin beers to arrive this fall.  I was really excited for it, because I'm a huge fan of the pumpkin beers like Pumking and Punkin'.

Pours a nice medium-amber color, with a slightly off-white foam.  The foam is fairly thick at first, but fades pretty quickly, and leaves behind only a very small amount of lacing.  For being part of their "UFO" series, it's pretty clear and not hazy at all really.

It smells exactly like pumpkin pie, if someone were sitting at the other end of the table eating pumpkin pie that is.  You can definitely pickup hints of pumpkin and spice, but it's not overwhelming, definitely on the milder side.

It tastes, well, like someone on the other end of the table was eating pumpkin pie.  There's definitely a touch of pumpkin, just a hint of cinnamon and spice, but that's about it.  It reminds me very much of the Pumpkinhead from Shipyard, but just slightly better.

I don't find anything wrong with this beer, except that it's not impressive really.  Great pumpkin beer, if you're not really a big fan of pumpkin beers.  Or, if you are a big fan of pumpkin beers, and your favorite pumpkin beer is the Shipyard Pumpkinhead.  Because let's face it, the Pumpkinhead smells like pumpkin, but doesn't really taste like much of a pumpkin beer.

If you're really interested in trying some real pumpkin beers, I'd recommend Southern Tier's Pumking, Dogfish Punkin' Ale, Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin Ale, and Shipyard's Smashed Pumpkin.  Let me know how it goes...