It's a gorgeous mid-September day in my little corner of the world (that's east-of-Cincinnati, middle-of-nowhere to you). The sun's high overhead, there're a few clouds scattered across the sky, the summer's last insects are buzzing blissfully in the tall grass and woods of the lot nextdoor, and the oppressive heat has finally let us be. I have some work before me this afternoon still (cutting the grass and an oil change), but it's time for a well-deserved break.

The beer I'm using to supplement that break is Bell's Octoberfest Beer. This is one I've been itching to try for years, but haven't found it in time to fit it into the blog's Oktoberfest schedule. Thankfully, that's changing today.

Did you read my post yesterday? If you haven't, I highly recommend you do so. Today's post won't be heavily reliant upon it in any way (you can definitely read this one as a stand-alone) but I might touch upon topics you'll understand more readily if you've read yesterday's.

Now that I've said all of that, let's get to today's beer: New Holland's first Dragon's Milk Reserve of 2021 (21R1 from here on out), featuring peanut butter and cocoa nibs. I love Dragon's Milk and I love Reese's Cups, so this seems like a beer tailor-made for me.

Man, this February's been a productive month for the blog! I'm super happy (and shocked) to be here writing about this beer today, because it's a snow day for me. My employer almost never closes its offices due to inclimate weather. Yet, here we are. 

While the roads aren't super bad currently, the end of this storm should see Cincinnati with somewhere between six to nine inches of accumulation. Then, on Thursday, we'll have another dumping of the stuff. Since this is a special occasion, I'm resurrecting my Tales from the Cellar series. The beer I'll be breaking into today is Goose Island's 2019 Bourbon County Brand Stout (BCBS henceforth).

It's March now. I don't know how, but we slipped into the third month of 2020 without my notice. Which is fine. Because March is, to most people, maple syrup season. I say "most people" because, to the blog, November is maple syrup season. Still, I'm more than willing to give a maple beer a go in March.


Today's beer isn't just a maple beer, however. No, it's a blueberry maple beer. You might call me a connoisseur of blueberry maple beers. While I've had at least a dozen of them, only three have made it to the blog in the five years (!) I've been doing this (those are, by the way, Saugatuck's Blueberry Maple Stout, its 2018 barrel-aged variant, and South Haven Brewpub's Violet Beauregarde, all of which are great). I guess you could easily say that I have high expectations whenever I encounter a new blueberry maple beer. Meaning, of course, that I have high expectations for Ellicottville's Blueberry Maple Pancake.

The subject of today's post is special to me. You see, it's been that personal white whale I've been chasing for years. I can now say I've finally caught it.


Woodchuck's Private Reserve Pumpkin was a beverage that was strange to me. I stumbled upon those stark orange and black bottles soon after I started drinking. I had only recently had the cidery's Fall Harvest (which has since been renamed to Spiced Apple) and fallen in love with it. While I was still hesitant to try beers with pumpkin in them, I figured a pumpkin cider might be up my alley. So, I took the plunge and bought the expensive sixer of the stuff at my local Kroger.

That sixer was a catalyst for me. I hated the cider. But, I figured there had to be something to it. Surely, they wouldn't take such care to make it and sell it at such an high price if it was bad! That cider is what got me to work on improving my taste when it came to cider and beer, an effort which led directly into the creation of this blog. A year later, when I was ready to try Private Reserve Pumpkin again, it was gone. After that initial year, I never saw the stuff again. I was heartbroken.

Fast-forward eight years. I was walking around one of my local bottleshops and had to suppress a squeal when I saw a stack of Woodchuck Pumpkin sixers. Sure the packaging was different (and it was a few bucks cheaper), but that didn't matter. I knew it had to be the triumphant return of that cider I'd despised so long ago. I added it to my cart and squirreled it away until today, when I'm finally able to make a post about it. So, here we are: Pumpkin.