Williamsburg Alewerks Pumpkin Ale

AFFORDABILITY: This here pumkin ale came in 6-packs that weren't necessarily affordable, again via the fine selection at the Country Blessings store in town, but you know what man? Financially, I'm going down in a blaze of fury, ignoring most phone calls, answering machine with like 17 robot messages about past due payments. In that sense, if you are going down, go big on the way. I guess. 3 out of 5.
DESTROYABILITY: At this point, as I try to limit my alcoholic intake, like Nascar slowing down their rockets at Talladega, I don't know rightly or not if something destroys me, so much as if it creates in me a desire to overindulge. Me and my ol' lady, we are big fans of good pumpkin ales, thus far in our life consisted mostly of Buffalo Bill's, which seems to be lacking something in recent years. But I can tell you this here Williamsburg AleWorks was the real deal pumpkin ale, that had us wishing we wasn't poor so we could buy the last two cases of it. Shit, on Halloween night, I made the old guy at Country Blessings let me bust open an unopened case of it to snag a couple last six-packs that I shouldn't have boughted. If I had the money to be like, "Hey, let me put a kegerator in my house," this would be the beer I try to put inside such a set-up, which would probably be on the opposite side of our old ass house as the woodstove. Or more likely I'd have it outside by the camper hooked up to an extension cord that also ran to the Christmas lights wrapped around the chicken coop. This is the best pumpkin ale ever, and tastes like a pumpkin ale should taste, which is like somebody dripped some pumpkin pie inside a beer. Too many fauntleroy beers think "pumpkin ale" means a little nutmeg spice on top of a mouthful of earthy hops. Shit man, too many fauntleroy beers think "good" beer should taste like a mouthful of ass herbs half the time. Why can't a beer be tasty, slightly sweet, and lighter than sucking on a cascading hops plant, without being derisively called a macrobrew? Fuck you beer nerds. Chill out, and drink faster now and then. But in closing, I am saddened this beer is a seasonal one, and next fall, if my pockets are straight, I'mma buy a shitload of this, like cases of it, to save until Christmas once it's all gone, spring it out, and be like, "WHAT'S UP NOW WORLD?" on a good night in the kitchen with some music playing and the wife looking good as hell and the kids in bed and feeling good to my heart about the whole slice of it all. 17 out of 5.
LABEL AESTHETIC: It's an okay enough labelling they be using on their pumpkin ale, but really, for such a good beer, they should just fill it with weird pseudo-religious statistical nonsense like a Dr. Bronner's soap bottle. 2 out of 5.
CORPORATE MASTER: The Country Blesssings dude told me he deals with Williamsburg AleWerks himself, and they keep him satisfied, and he'd give them more cooler space if he could, but he had just gotten some sort of type of beer from them post-pumpkin ale that didn't sell as well. Thinking about a seriously micro microbrewery having some sales dude, probably the cousin or old college roommate to the guy who started the thing, calling some guy at some weird high end general store in shitty small town central Virginia, to try and get him squared away on some beer that nobody there's ever heard of, well, having just thrown in the towel of surrender after a four or five year stint of self-employment, I can respect that ethic. Even though Williamsburg is, by and large, a creepy place full of overly white people lacking in completely formed souls, I can give Williamsburg AleWerks some propers. 4 out of 5.
OVERALL AMBIANCE: This was the best beer I tasted for the first time in 2009. All in all, 2009 was not the best year of my life. I mean my family was healthy and my three daughters are beacons of bizarre joy, but moneywise it was nothing but an uphill fight, all fucking year long. Without the help of ma dukes, we would've been foreclosed and probably living in a fucking trailer in Farmville, the actual shithole place not the game. But we somehow got through it, and a new year bout to kick off, with big thangs in short order. Big thangs. And being with my family was strong as fuck in 2009, and kept me from taking a bottle of hydrocodone with two forties of Steel Reserve down by the river at the end of Shores Road. My wife and my kids and my property, which was compounded like I always dreamed this year with chickens and stupid guineas and pigs, it makes me feel good. We live a few miles outside of a small town, an actual bonafide small town full of failing businesses and a Dollar General and a new gas station in an old building that means I don't have to get my MegaMillions tickets in Palmyra anymore, and it all feels good. There's soccer in the fall on Saturday mornings where everybody who has kids is there. And since I've coached there for seven years now, there's a thousand people I know, and I'm coaching kids now that are the younger brother or sister of kids I coached before who are now turning into teenagers. And my youngest is toddling after balls on the sideline and I've got a couple of local homeboys who had their firstborn ever this year and my youngest and their firstest will be kicking it together in a few short years and we can coach 'em up together. And on Halloween we walked around town with our three kids and got candy from strangers and bumped into familiar faces and it was a warm, beautiful night, and we blew $20 on a couple more 6-packs of this Pumpkin Ale plus a pint bottle of something else I can't even remember, and other friends were sitting there eating pizza, and it was fucking perfect. The worst year of my adult life, still perfect as fuck and pleasant to my heart. How the fuck could I ever complain? This is the beer for this year, in my memory bank. God bless us, one and all. 23 out of 5.
TOTAL RATING: 9 & 4/5 STARS!