Brewery: No Label Brewing Company
Beer: Off Label: Nightmare on 1st Street
Style: Pumpkin Ale
ABV: 9.27%
Character: Brewed with pumpkin & spice: lots of ginger & clove, with a bit of cinnamon and allspice
Ratings at the time of Review: BA: n/a | RB: 76
Metal Connection: HYPOCRISY – Nightmare
BeerMetalDude Rating: 4.25/5
Texas has produced some really good breweries who, in turn, produce some really good beers. Since 2009, in the small town, located right outside of Houston, called Katy, a brewery known as No Label Brewing Company has been pumping out some rather fine beer offerings. They created the Off Label brand to showcase more wild and crazy beers in limited batches. Their Autumn seasonal release is a strong Imperial Pumpkin Ale properly named “Nightmare on 1st Street,” since the brewery is located on a 1st St.
The bottle has the label etched directly on the bottle, which is mostly all just font text. So far all the Off Label brand beers share the same label format with minor differences between them all.Here on this bottle, the main difference is the addition of bats flying around the Off Label stamp logo. The use of orange on some of the text, and the addition of a large pumpkin directly below the name and style of the beer really helps the buyer know that this is a seasonal pumpkin beer.
Proper glassware was used for this session. I poured this beer into an actual No Label Brewing Nightmare on 1st Street snifter glass. The beer poured a slightly hazy copper/burnt orange color that was topped with a small eggshell colored head, which quickly disappeared, leaving no lacing down the glass.
There was a big whiff of pureed pumpkin right up front in the nose. The allspice was strong, along with cinnamon, clove, and a ton of ginger. There was a nice bread-like aroma behind the spices, making this beer smell like a pumpkin cake muffin. There is a nice boozy burn in the tail end of each whiff.
The taste is like aroma. Pureed pumpkin taste, then loaded with a ton of spices like allspice, cinnamon, and clove. I can really pick up a heavy amount of ginger in the taste mixed in with the other spices. Again, this beer has a bread-like backbone. The aftertaste is like a pumpkin cake muffin. There is a presence of booze in the aftertaste as well.
There is a medium thickness to this beer, along with a slick and smooth mouthfeel with a soft finish which makes me think of the whipped cream atop the pumpkin cake muffin.
Overall, this was a pretty impressive pumpkin beer. We all know there is a million and one choices when it comes to pumpkin beers, and they all tend to taste the same after a while, but every now and then there is one that stands out. The body and finish of this beer along with the finishing flavors are what makes me put this beer on top of the crowd. I really want a pumpkin cake muffin complete with sweet pumpkin pie spiced whipped cream.
Metal Connection: When I was first getting into the Death Metal underground scene, there was a handful of bands that really fucking blew my mind. Hypocrisy from Sweden was one of those bands. I remember seeing their music video clip on the Death is just the Beginning, Vol. 1 video cassette, which introduced me to a lot of great bands that were signed to Relapse/Nuclear Blast back in the early days of the scene. There was no Facebook, or really any social media outlets back then, so I would look through printed catalogs to order CD’s and read reviews in various fanzines, or I would just visit the old record stores and buy CD’s based on the album covers. I purchased Hypocrisy’s debut album, Penetralia based on the cover art alone. When I got home I was blown away by the music on the disc, and Hypocrisy, despite all their changes has remained one of my favorite bands. The song chosen for this Metal Connection is titled “Nightmare,” and is one of the heaviest and most catchiest song on this album.
Beer Metal Media 