Baeren Pumpkin Wheat is a 5% spiced beer from Baeren, based in Morioka, Japan. It’s part of their annual autumnal release, with them producing a different pumpkin beer each year. Baeren Pumpkin Wheat with 3 Spices, to give it its proper name, is brewed using coriander, orange peel, and allspice, while the pumpkins, known as kabocha in Japanese, are locally sourced.
Baeren Pumpkin Wheat Aroma and Taste
Perhaps I’m not the person to be reviewing a pumpkin beer – mainly because I find the style almost just a little bit worse than NE IPA – highly overrated and lacking in real substance but here we go. Baeren Pumpkin Wheat poured out a hazy copper orange colour with a meagre amount of white head on top. There was an overpowering aroma of spices – coriander and allspice – and just dominated all over the aromas. If there was orange peel in there then it couldn’t be smelt. The same goes for the pumpkin – just a distinct lack of aroma at all.
The body was as muddle of a mess as the nose – it was spiced so much that I had to make sure I hadn’t picked up a pair of ugg boots and make sure I hadn’t changed into to some Starbucks’ Autumn spice-loving person. There was also a distinct butteriness to Baeren Pumpkin Wheat as well – I don’t know if that was deliberate or not but at least it took away the spices.
Baeren Pumpkin Wheat The Bottom Line
Overspiced mess that needs reining in. And another beer that fails to convince me that pumpkin beers are nothing but a fad.
