Here we are. Over a week into October and it's finally starting to feel like fall. Sure the sun's shining, but I could see my breath when I took Lottie out this morning and it's a steady 68° in my house without the air running.

What better way to grace the triumphant return of the best season than by breaking the seal on Spooky Finger Puppet Ghost Month 2025? To christen the pumpkin season on the blog, we're doing up Wolf's Ridge's Pumpkin Spice Daybreak. Let's see how it's drinking.

Ah, how I despise October's rolling temperatures. We here in my little pocket of Ohio are being flung from 30-something degrees to 70-some degrees (in Fahrenheit, as always), meaning I've been achy and sleepy. But, hey, I'll take cooler temps however I can get them this time of year! 

I had originally planned on today's beer being the subject of my most recent post but figured it'd be better for a warmer day than one that was more brisk. Thus, my short shuffling around that I'm willing to bet most of you didn't notice. Regardless, let's get into the beer at hand: Streetside's Pumpkin Spice Latte Return of the Mac (I'll just call it PSL from here on out).

November really threw me for a loop. I didn't get to finish Maple Month here on the blog, nor did I finish my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo. I took tasting notes for the final beer I was going to post about and snapped the necessary pictures for it. However, I didn't care for the beer and, because of how hectic the end of the month was for me, I decided not to actually make the whole post.

This weekend I plan on getting to the Christmas beers I have lined up. As such, I thought it best to provide you with all I have of that final maple beer. Without further ado, here are my pictures and unedited/unrefined tasting notes on Timber Ales and The Seed's imperial maple coffee stout, He Who Walks Among Monsters (that's an Untappd link):

Wow. Turns out all of May slipped by without a single post. I think I've only missed an entire month once or twice (I can't be bothered to go check). Anyway, I'm here today with a special something, the kind of something that'd usually be reserved for a November post. Yet, I couldn't help myself.

Today, I'm taking a look at Jackie O's' coffee variant of my favorite beer: Bourbon Barrel Black Maple. I've had this before, when it was a draft-only offering (which was in 2017!). Fast-forward five years and Jackie O's is making dreams come true. Today's bottle isn't hitting distro, but you can order it directly from the brewery (as long as they're able to ship to you). Let's see how she's drinking.

This is one of those incredibly rare occurrences where the weather's bad enough that my employer shutters its offices for the day so its employees can stay home and safe. Right now, we're getting pummeled with freezing rain, which will last until this evening when it turns to snow. The power's still on--truth be told, I don't think we'll lose it (but we're covered with firewood and bottled water if we do).

After a lazy morning I'm now welcoming an equally lazy afternoon with a bottle of Wolf's Ridge's Dire Wolf Coffee Joy, which I'm sipping before a roaring blaze in our wood-burning stove. I'm so happy to be indoors right now.

Today's beer--the blog's first of the 2022--is one I've had in my posession for a little over three years. It was a Christmas gift back in 2019 (you, know, pre-pandemic) and came from either my dad (I think he's the culprit) or my brother. It was a beer I'd never heard of from a brewery I've only encountered once.

I hadn't meant to age it for three years (seeing as how it was nearly one when it was gifted to me). Nor had I meant to put off this month's initial post for this long (I've had two Covid scares already this calendar year--blowing my record of zero out of the water). Yet, here we are, beginning to forge ahead. Today I'm drinking Whiner's Fur Letter Word. 

This is a beer that I found the day I heard about it. A month or so ago, I saw a bottleshop I follow on social media post about it. Intrigued, I resolved to pick it up if I ever happened upon it in the wild. Later that day, I found it in a totally different bottleshop while I was heading home from work. And now here we are.

The beer is R. Shea's Twitchy. I see on the brewery's website that they add another word to the name, but it's not a super good word (and one that I think we should work to de-normalize) so I won't be including it here. Nor is that word anywhere on my can. I figured I should address that early on in the post. 

Anyway, this might just be the biggest (ABV-wise) beer I drink this season. If it's not, it up there. Let's get to it.

This is a special, un-announced post because, well, I wasn't sure I'd be able to find this beer. We'll get into Black is Beautiful in a bit, but it's a big collaboration effort spanning breweries the world over. I wasn't sure what the distribution footprint of any one variant would be, so I was super excited when I found a four-pack of Streetside's on store shelves yesterday. I'm hoping I run into other breweries' spins on it in the wild, too.


Also, this is my first ever Streetside beer! What a beer to introduce them to both me and the blog. Let's see how it's drinking.

Surprise! This is a beer that I didn't originally plan to write about this Spooky Finger Puppet Ghost Month but, since I discovered a bottle kicking around in my cellar (a.k.a. a darkened corner of my garage), I figured "why not?"


Before jumping into the bottle, I'll note a few things:

1. This is last year's Punkuccino. See, a local bottleshop had a plenty left over from last year and, in the early spring, they marked their remaining stock down to two bucks a bomber.
2. This isn't the only Elysian pumpkin beer I'm discussing this year; the other'll be Night Owl.
3. Elysian is, of course, a shill for AB InBev. I drink AB InBev beers, but I also recognize just how awful the company is. They're the worst.
4. I've had this beer before. Many times, in fact (I bought more than a few $2 bombers). While it's not the worst pumpkin beer I've had (that honor goes to Saranac's Pumpkin Ale) nor is it the worst Elysian pumpkin beer I've had (that'd be Dark Knife, also marked down to $2/bomber earlier this year), I can't say I particularly enjoy it. In this post, I'll tell you why that is.

Today is the first autumn day that actually feels autumnal. When I took Lottie out this morning, I was compelled to throw on a hoodie because it was 54°. Can you believe it? Better yet, the forecast isn't showing anything above the 70°s for the next few weeks (it's refusing to show me anything further than that). What a spectacular day to put up my second Spooky Finger Puppet Ghost Month post!


For your frightful pleasure today, I'll be discussing Ellicottville Brewing Company's (EBC from now on) addition to the wide array of pumpkin beers: Pumpkinville Latte. Let's find out if it's up to the blog's spooky standards.

I've been holding onto this can for months, waiting for the right time to crack it open and share my thoughts. Unfortunately, plenty of those right times have come and gone when I've just been too damn busy to do anything.


Tonight that ends; I'm finally making time for this post.

I love the idea of adding coffee to hard cider--apple and coffee are two flavors that work super well together that rarely get any attention. The third cider I ever brewed on my own was a boozy dry cider with some homemade cold brew steeped into it (I also added some hazelnut extract). The result was an intensely satisfying summer drink that I named Purrline Ann, after my trusty four-pawed sidekick. According to my brother (who drank the last existent bottle of the stuff), the cider soured eventually, adding another, wholly unexpected, layer of awesomeness to it.

When Blake's announced that they were making a coffee cider I just about lost it. I stopped into my local bottleshop weekly after that announcement, hoping that I'd find this then-latest Kinder Cider offering on the shelves. Eventually, I did. Let's find out together if it's worthy of my self-imposed hype.

This is the last in a series of four posts devoted to Local Blend, a collaboration series of coffee porters MadTree released in January. I'll be judging each beer individually, comparing it to the others in the series, and, finally, rating Local Blend as a whole.


Here we are, that the last entry in MadTree's Local Blend series. Spring is finally here (I spent yesterday doing some yard work and planting my vegetable garden) and the sun is shining brightly outside my window. It's a beautiful morning, and I can't think of a better reason to break into this fourth can. So, without wasting more time, let's get to it: Local Blend Cleveland.

This is the third in a series of four posts devoted to Local Blend, a collaboration series of coffee porters MadTree released in January. I'll be judging each beer individually, comparing it to the others in the series, and, finally, rating Local Blend as a whole.

Today is as good a day for coffee as any. In fact, I've already had a mug. I've also had some tea, for what it's worth. It's cold and cloudy outside my living room window, which stinks because it's been 70˚ the last two days (albeit with a strong chance of tornadoes yesterday). So, I guess you could say that the today's cloudy 40˚ is unpleasant and unwelcome. Couple that with crummy sleep last night and, yeah. Coffee's called for.


However, since I've already had a fair amount of caffeine today, and since I have work tomorrow and definitely need to sleep tonight, I'd rather reach for something that tastes like coffee instead of the actual stuff itself. As such, it's a good day to turn to the next in MadTree's Local Blend series: Columbus, featuring coffee from Stauf's.

This is the second in a series of four posts devoted to Local Blend, a collaboration series of coffee porters MadTree recently released. I'll be judging each beer individually, comparing it to the others in the series, and, finally, rating Local Blend as a whole.

Boston Stoker isn't a coffee brand I've enjoyed before. Sure, I've seen bags of their blends around. And yeah, a few of my friends like their Facebook page--some of these are big coffee folks, leading me to believe that I'm in for a treat with Dayton Local Blend.


When MadTree dropped its Local Blend collaboration series last month, I was, to say the least, excited. I like MadTree, I like porters, and I like coffee beers. Why the hell wouldn't I be excited? Drinking the Cincinnati Local Blend the other day (see, each can in this collab four-pack represents a different Ohio city, and each features coffee from a company that calls that can's namesake home) only increased that excitement. So, let's go ahead and break into today's can.

This is the first in a series of four posts devoted to Local Blend, a collaboration series of coffee porters MadTree recently released. 

I've had Deeper Roots coffee before. For my birthday last year, which was, coincidentally, celebrated at MadTree, my brother gave me a bag of Deeper Roots' Community Blend. It's really good stuff, and I can't wait to find out what Deeper Roots coffee adds to a beer such as a porter.


You see, last month MadTree dropped Local Blend, a group of four porters brewed in collaboration with four coffee roasters around Ohio. Each can represents a different city: Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, and Cleveland. I'm impressed with the sheer scope of this collaboration series, and, after sitting on my cans since I grabbed them on January 5th, I'm finally breaking into them one-by-one here on the blog. The goal is to review them individually, see how they stack up against each other, and give the overall Local Blend series a rating.

So, here we go. MadTree's Local Blend. First up: Cincinnati - Deeper Roots Coffee.

How's your January been? Cold? Yeah, ours too. We're just now starting to emerge from that polar vortex that's wrapped New England and the Midwest up tight the last few days.


All that cold's been making me sleepy. I get home from work, pull on my sweatpants, light a fire, and veg out while trying to stave off bedtime until a reasonable hour. Tonight, I'm thinking a little kick might help. That kick is coming in the form of Wiedemann's Wake Me Up (which, by the way, may make for an exceptional breakfast beer, if you're into that sort of thing. This is, and has been, a judgement-free zone--unless you happen to be a beer).

I like Sundays. Sundays (now that I no longer have to intern on Sundays) are when I embrace my drinking school Ohio University roots, throw caution to the wind, and drink when I want. Usually this manifests around 11 a.m. or noon after I return to my apartment after a long run. Today, though, if I run it'll be later on. I have something very important to drink right now, while it's still breakfast time.


That something important is Dogfish Head's Beer for Breakfast. The bottle at hand is my final bottle of the stuff--I've been saving it for a post just like this on a day just like today. If you don't want spoilers, you may as well skip to the next paragraph (or hit the jump if it's applicable). If you don't care about spoilers, allow me to indulge myself by saying at the top that I love this beer. It's a good thing (for my wallet) that it's released pretty sporadically.

Believe it or not, it's 65 degrees here in Cincinnati today. It's January 22nd. I just got back home from taking a nice afternoon run in the warmth and the sunshine. Today, I'm drinking a winter seasonal. This probably isn't the kind of day that the brewers at Jackie O's envisioned one would enjoy while drinking a Java the Stout--no doubt they brewed it for days when snow piles up and people are forced to stay off of the roads due to unseemly weather conditions.


But, here I am sitting on my balcony in late January, listening to songbirds, and drinking in every last bit of warmth this winter sun has to offer, an open can of Java the Stout at my side.

So, I've seen some really good things about this beer. Hell, I've seen some really good things about Stone Brewing, too. But, for whatever reason, I've never had them.


Well, all of that changes today. I've had a doozy of a day, and I need some chocolatey, spicy goodness to perk me up. Is Xocoveza up to the challenge?

I've been waiting to try this one. I'm amazed that I was able to keep away from it for so long. It's been sitting in my fridge for a few weeks now. If you'll recall, my previous (and only) experience with Upland was extraordinary. It ended with my giving Bad Elmer's a very serious 9.5/10. So, needless to say, I have high hopes for REVved UP.


Compound this with the Schlafly coffee blonde I had a few months back, and my frothing demand for this brew increases. Go figure, too. I like other beers from the brewery. I like other beers in this style. I'd have to be a fool not to want to break into this bottle.