Aaahhh…Gus Gus (Naked City Brewery)

PUMPKIN BEER #12

With one last ticket in my hand I made my way around the event searching for my final beer. By this point many of the beers on my list had long since been finished off, leaving me with but a few “new” beers to try. In all honesty it was the name of this beer that made me choose it: AAAHHH…GUS GUS. The name told me nothing about the beer and sometimes that the best way to do it.

You already know the Cinderella theme. We mashed in at midnight with about 15 pajama clad girls. In our story, it wasn’t a coach that turned into a pumpkin at midnight, it was the beer. Naked City’s Pumpkin Beer offering is a Pumpkin Blossom Saison. In a 3bbl batch I split over 30 lbs. of pumpkin meat between the mash and the boil. At whirlpool I added 100 pumpkin blossoms and 8 oz. of Market Spice Tea. The beer was fermented with a blend of Wyeast Saison 3724 and 3711 and primed in the bright tank with pumpkin blossom honey. 6.5% ABV. 

Aaahhh…Gus Gus pours a light lemon yellow with gold highlights. It’s cloudy and murky, so much so that you can’t see through the liquid. The head is a raft of white foam floating on the columns of carbonation that run up the side of the glass.

The nose on this beer is surprisingly Bavarian. I detected both banana and clove before the more traditional seasonal spices came through. Pumpkin, ginger and allspice are all present, with cinnamon coming through as the beer warms.

Light and mellow is the name of the taste game. It starts with a little Bavarian banana before giving way to the allspice and a faint hint of ginger. Autumnal spiciness comes through more in the end as it warms. Not too big, but not weak either.

Mouthfeel is light and slightly drying. Not bad at all.

If I would have had to guess the style of this beer I would have said Bavarian Hefeweizen not a saison. It was tasty, but I was expecting one thing and I was given another. I think if I could have went into this beer knowing nothing about it then it would have probably received a slightly higher rating.

Overall: 6.5 out of 10

As a SAISON: 5 out of 10

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