If pumpkin is your poison, try these seasonal drinks

Though hugely popular – enough to warrant a few new brands every fall, anyway – they also seem to elicit more sneers than any other style.

Pumpkin beer was my 24-year-old colleague Lauren Krause’s entry into the craft beer world after college. Not only does she find autumn’s smells and flavors “insanely comforting,” pumpkin beer was an easy style to reckon with when faced with so many options. Now, she said, “It’s a must-have – I have to have pumpkin beer every fall.”

One afternoon, we assembled a team to taste those beers. The conclusion: Even in such a narrow style, the taste, body and quality vary widely.

“I had mostly lumped them all together,” Krause said. “It was interesting to compare and contrast and see who knows what they’re doing and who doesn’t.”

Here’s who knows what they’re doing and who doesn’t, with comments from our discussion:

First tier

n Dogfish Head Punkin Ale (Complex web of spice; a standard for a reason)

n Hoppin’ Frog Frog’s Hollow Double Pumpkin Ale (Large and savory, with more spice than pumpkin)

n Lakefront Pumpkin Lager (One of the few pumpkin lagers, cleanly executed for easy drinking)

n New Holland Ichabod (Nicely bitter finish follows authentic pumpkin flavor)

n Timmermans Pumpkin Lambicus (One of the few, if not only, pumpkin lambics. Huge, lightly sour flavor despite just 4 percent alcohol)

Second tier

n O’Fallon Pumpkin Beer (Sweet, but balanced by strong elements of clove and cinnamon)

n Sam Adams Fat Jack (Pumpkin pie in a bottle)

n St. Ambroise Pumpkin (The most effervescent beer on this list)

n Tyranena Painted Ladies (A nice fall punch in its caramel-malt body)

n Uinta Punk’n (Reminds us more of plums than pumpkins)

Third tier

n Ace Hard Pumpkin Cider (Tastes like cider; where’s the pumpkin?)

n Arcadia Jaw-Jacker (Strong spice makes it better than average – barely)

n Cisco Brewers Pumple Drumkin (Not quite enough going on)

n Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale (Tastes bitter)

n Wild Onion Pumpkin Ale (Strong spice that tapers off before doing anything interesting)