Aroma
Malty, spicy, and balanced. A wide range is possible, as long as it evokes the harvest theme. The declared ingredients and concept set the expectation. Hops are often subtle. Alcohol is often present, but smooth and supportive. The components should be well-integrated, and create a coherent presentation.See Flavor section for spice, malt, sugar, and vegetable character.
Aparência
Medium amber to coppery-brown; lighter versions are more common. Clear, if not opaque. Well-formed, persistent,off-white to tan head. Some versions with squashes will take on an unusual hue for beer, with orange-like hints.
Sabor
Malty, spicy, and balanced. Allow for brewer creativity in meeting the theme objective. Warming or sweet spices common. Rich, toasty malty flavors are common, and may include caramel, toasted bread or pie crust, biscuit, or nut flavors. May include distinctive sugar flavors, like molasses, honey, or brown sugar. Flavor derived from squash-based vegetables are often elusive, often only providing a richer sweetness.The special ingredients should be supportive and balanced, not overshadowing the base beer. Bitterness and hop flavor are usually restrained to not interfere with the special character. Usually finishes somewhat full and satisfying, occasionallywith a light alcohol flavor. Roasted malt characteristics are typically absent.
Corpo
Body is usually medium to full, and may be chewy. Moderately low to moderately high carbonation. Age character allowable. Warming alcohol allowable.
Contexto
We use the common or culinary definitions of spices, herbs, and vegetables, not botanical or scientific ones. In general, spices are the dried seeds, seed pods, fruit, roots, bark, etc. of plants used for flavoring food. Herbs are leafy plants or parts of plants (leaves, flowers, petals, stalks) used for flavoring food. Vegetables are savory or less sweet edible plant products, used primarily for cooking or sometimes eating raw. Vegetables can include some botanical fruit. This category explicitly includes all culinary spices, herbs, and vegetables, as well as nuts (or anything with ‘nut’ in the name, including coconut), chile peppers, coffee, chocolate, spruce tips, rose hips, hibiscus, fruit peels/zest (but not juice), rhubarb, and the like. It does not include culinary fruit or grains. Flavorful fermentable sugars and syrups (e.g., agave nectar, maple syrup, molasses, sorghum, treacle, honey) or sweeteners (e.g., lactose) can be included only in combination with other allowable ingredients, and should not have a dominant character. Any combination of allowable ingredients may also be entered. See Category 29 for a definition and examples of fruit.See the Introduction to Specialty-Type Beer section for additional comments, particularly on evaluating the balance of added ingredients with the base beer.