Wild North Pumpkin Ale

Wild North Pumpkin Ale comes from Baysville, Ontario. It’s brewed by the Lake of Bays Brewery, comes in 473mL cans, and checks in at a feisty  6% alcohol.

The beer, brewed with pumpkin, has a rich auburn colour and a loose off-white layer of head. It has an autumnal nose—pumpkin pie with clove and cinnamon. The flavour walks a similar pass, with sweet, aromatic pumpkin pie notes, backed against a mild bitter finish.

To my mind, the best pumpkin ales are strong, spicy, bitter, and bold. For me, Lake of Bays’ Wild North Pumpkin Ale ticks one of those boxes (spicy), comes very close on two others (strong and bitter), and falls a bit short on the last (bold). If this beer were upped to 7%, it might have hit all of my unofficial criteria. Still, as is, I liked the beer quite a bit. It had me hankering for a Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixins.

Rating: 8.0 out of 10.