10/3/21: Third Eye Brewing Company's Pumpkin P-EYE

Today marks the first autumn day that actually looks like a autumn day. The sky's overcast and the trees are beginning to adorn their colorful fall cloaks--the maple across the street from our house has a healthy carpeting of fallen leaves beneath its boughs.

Despite all this, and despite the chill in the breeze, the temperature's still a little warm for my liking. But, if you look at today as a preview of what the season'll be, well, there's good cause to be pleased. All the more so because I'm using the wonderful early-autumn evening as an excuse break into the second beverage I'm featuring on the blog this season: Third Eye's Pumpkin P-EYE.

Third Eye Brewing Company's based out of Sharonville, OH (just north of Cincinnati). The brewery's dedicated to brewing beer so good that it'll open your mind's eye. Their website says they've been making beer for over twenty years, which must mean that  the folks behind the brewery have a lot of homebrewing experience since this 365 Cincinnati article details their opening date in June of 2020. I'm excited to drink a beer that's a culmination of over two decades of brewing and dreaming!

Pumpkin P-EYE has a spot near the bottom of Third Eye's "Beer" page. It's a 5.6% ABV dessert-inspired ale brewed with graham cracker, vanilla, and Colonel De's Pumpkin Pie Spice Blend. Seeing as how it took home a bronze in last year's Ohio Cup, that excitement I listed above is now ratcheted up a little.

The vanilla, the graham, and the pumpkin pie spice (allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, and hint of ginger) are all mingling nicely together in the ale's bouquet. I'm also finding a note of milk chocolate in my can, which can probably be attributed to the combination of vanilla and some of the pie spice. There's the ghost of a bite of booze in here that I might be imagining, but I'm not sure I am. It's an intriguing nose, and one that, at eight whiffs, Purrl can get behind.

P-EYE's most prominent flavor is the vanilla, followed quietly by the graham. This provides a marshmallowy quality. Third Eye recommends drinking this while watching a scary movie, but I'd argue that it'd be just as fitting beside a bonfire. Those pumpkin pie spices flare up in the finish, without overpowering everything else the beer has going on (there's a nibble of hops that accompanies the spices here). That boozy haunting I got earlier isn't anywhere to be found in the ale's flavor profile.

Taking a full swig from my can, I find a sharp mouthfeel. It's big and filling at first, but there's a sharp, bitiness left from the carbonation after my swig and before I take another pull.

The ale has an old-timey, classic quality to it. It reminds me of this old-timey cat-sitting-on-a-crescent-moon Halloween decoration we bought a few years ago. We hung it on the door leading to our garage (which is where we'll hang it when we decorate this week). 

When we play fetch with Lottie, we throw one of her toys down the hallway leading to the garage. One evening, two years ago (shortly after buying the cat decoration), we threw her toy all the way to the door. She chased it and got spooked by something, running back to us--toyless--with her stub tail tucked down. It took us longer than I should probably admit to realize that the cat-in-the-moon had frightened her! Since then, whenever we have that decoration up, we take care to not throw her toy anywhere near it.

Assuming that Pumpkin P-EYE is the culmination of 20 years of Third Eye brewing, it's impressive. I can see why this is a bronze-winning beer. It nails the marshmallowy, pumpkin pie experience while employing neither marshmallow nor pumpkin. I'm happy to give it an 8.5/10. This'll be a new seasonal staple for me.