Mixing two iconic beers yields heavenly results

November 23, 2020 Jordan Palmer St. Louis Craft Beer Comments Off

If you’re fan of mixing beers, two iconic beers at that; here’s some news for you.

Mixing two iconic beers yields heavenly results

I hope this story does not offend anyone. But, beer drinking in a pandemic can do strange things to a guy’s brain. To be clear, if you’ve followed this blog for at least a year, you know that I’m prone to beer-mixing, as I chronicled here.

But, this one felt different, as I was taking two beers, two potentially iconic beers, and playing with the near perfect chemistry that is in each of them. The two beers? 4 Hands Brewing’s Absence Of Light, and Schalfly’s Pumpkin Ale.

Finding The Right Mix

Beer mixing is something I enjoyed back in college, but admittedly, it got forgotten until just recently.

While attending the last year’s Schlafly Cabin Fever festival, I was in line for their Imperial Pumpkin when I got to the front of the line, I asked the gentleman what he felt the difference was between this beer and the regular Pumpkin Ale. He said, Imperial had higher ABV, and that it was actually a mix of the Pumpkin Ale and Schlafly’s Oatmeal Stout. But he wasn’t through talking. He went on to recommend that I take a half pour, and mix it with their Latte Stout for an entirely new experience.

I was re-hooked.

The art of the mix, is to find the right ratio. In this case, I began with half-and-half pour. After drinking about half I felt the peanut butter was lost, replaced with almost a gingerbread affect. I liked it, but it wasn’t perfect.

I added back about 2-oz of Absence Of Light and in that first sip the balance was re-distributed with less of the gingerbread, with the peanut butter started to come through. It was actually a much better flavor.

Final Pouring Recommendation

I’m recommending a 2/3 pour favoring Absence Of Light, along with a 1/3 pour of Pumpkin Ale. The pumpkin flavor really cuts through, and requires the rebalancing. The result, to me is a new flavor, that I say has hints of gingerbread, but is subtle. The flavor you’ll find certainly holds the essense of each beer, but is unique in it’s own way.

If you try it, let us no what you think.