Town Hall Chocolate Pumpkin Ale

So, here's the thing. This beer, which I don't think I've ever had, was only available in growlers as part of a 3-pack, which got you a dollar off on each. Also, the Cranberry Abbey Ale. However, I didn't realize until I got my bill that those two were $19 each. Did I really want to pay that much? Well, you know what they say...YOLO!

Ahem. So, I purchased those two, and the Autumn Blaze, and also had a Dark Krystal that I had purchased the week prior and hadn't touched, all of which I intended to take to Thanksgiving dinner with my family. Now, I'd never written about any of these, and if I'm spending almost $20 on some, I'd better get some reviews out of it, so I took out a 12 ounce pour of each to take my notes on them all. Took me up until about 2 a.m. (kind of early for me), along with the Schell's and Summit beers I recently posted. All was well, I got plenty of sleep and woke up ready to go, on time, took my growlers to the gathering, and here's what happened. Everyone enjoyed the beers, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, Mom, and while I didn't get a ton of specific feedback, I found that they drank all of the Cranberry Abbey before I got any (good thing I took my notes last night!), and the only one with any left was this one. I don't think the words Chocolate next to Pumpkin really sold the deal for anyone.

I looked on ratebeer.com and found four reviews. In 2013, 2 raters gave it a 3.7 and a 3.8. Five years ago, 2 reviews in 2008 gave it a 1.3 and a 1.5 and said some damaging things about it. Over on BeerAdvocate, 2 reviews from 4/5 years ago gave it a more charitable 3.7 average.

What did I think? Check it out:

Town Hall Chocolate Pumpkin Ale.

You put your chocolate in my pumpkin! YOU put your pumpkin in my chocolate.

Clear, dark russet brown, head starts out okay, but disappears with a quickness.

Aroma: Pumpkin hits first, swallowed by chocolate. Chocolate maintains it's dominance, though it's more cocoa powder than anything else. Nice.

Taste: Mmm! Wow! This is nearly a perfect marriage of these two flavors, big and bold, flooding the mouth of flavor. Big-time choco-tastic flavor-iffic. Yum. Did I say that, yet? Fullish body, fastastic-al flavor.

Apparently, they got it right this time. Or those ratebeer reviewers are nincompoops. And some people get scared off when they think of chocolate and pumpkin. Wonder why?