Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales: Oro de Calabaza Beer Review

Jolly Pumpkin Oro de Calabaza Wild Artisan Golden Ale - 8%

Made with pilsner malt, pale malt, and wheat malt

IBU - 30

Time in Oak: 6-9 months

Retail price- $11.99/four-pack

When I was starting off on my beer journey, I was living in Boston, which was a wonderful place to hone one’s love of beer. The year was 2008 and Massachusetts’ low fees to distribute there let us experience a wealth of breweries from all over the country and all over the world.

I would meet friends at Downtown Wines and Spirits in Somerville and peruse the aisles of beer styles. A beer I would frequently gravitate towards was Jolly Pumpkin, whose tart yet drinkable beer styles were unlike anything else I’d tried before.

Jolly Pumpkin is now the elder statesperson in the beer scene. It’s not that we forgot about Jolly Pumpkin; it’s that mixed fermentation styles became more normalized in the beer scene and thus easier to obtain. The Jolly Pumpkin beers that once stood out on the shelves for their whimsical, French Belle Epoque style labels and labor of love liquids sadly became overlooked.

To reinvent the wheel slightly, Jolly Pumpkin has moved their flagship beers into 16 oz four-pack cans- the now preferred conveyance of beer geeks. This is a smart move as it will appeal to a new group who moved past the sadly dusty bottles of Jolly Pumpkin when they should have given it a chance all along. The price point is also eye-catching: $11.99. When we sold Jolly Pumpkin at the bottle shop I worked at in Oregon ten years ago; a single 750mL bottle would cost you $12-15.

Oro de Calabaza has been winning awards since it first launched in 2004. Its golden haziness and formidable white foam stand to look like a glimmer of the sun behind puffy clouds. This is the kind of beer you drink on those spring days when it’s finally warm enough to sit out-of-doors and the air smells of damp earth.

8% is a pretty big beer for tart beer but the alcohol is nowhere to be found. Alcohol tends to bring out the sharpness to mixed fermentation beers but Oro is unbelievably balanced. Its well-roundedness reminds me of good white wine and its tartness is similar to a crisp Southern Hemisphere sauvignon blanc. Jolly Pumpkin was always a good beer to give to wine lovers. A glass of this before dinner would be a nice touch to impress any wine drinker.

Aromas and flavors of Oro are a bevy of sensations- lemon zest, wet concrete, citrus vinaigrette, lime sour patch kids, hayloft, and fresh-cut flowers. The house mixed fermentation character is the star of the show in the aroma and flavor. It tastes just as it did 14 years ago; like catching up with an old friend.

The beer finishes with a lingering carbonic bite and subtle dryness. Its joy is its versatility. This beer can be served al fresco in a wine glass alongside a fresh cheese plate or bitter green salad. Or, now that it’s in cans, it can be packed in a cooler and drank atop a mountain with thirst-quenching results. The 16 oz can is a perfect size for one. I did not share this can, nor did I want to. It’s nice to see Jolly Pumpkin showcase can conditioning although I would like to see how it holds up to extended aging.

I would definitely recommend sharing a four-pack with a few friends and reintroducing a world of new drinkers that may not know about Jolly Pumpkin. They deserve all the attention.