Edmonton’s elder microbrewery, Alley Kat, has quietly been releasing some new seasonal offerings over the past couple weeks, so I have sampled them all recently andthought I should offer a quick run down for you.

Pumpkin Pi is out for its fourth annual fall run. This year’s version continues to be dominated by pumpkin pie spices of allspice, cinnamon and clove back by a moderately sweet amber ale base. My impression is that it is drier this year, but that could be my memory playing tricks. I still find it has the most assertive pumpkin notes of any of the pumpkin beer available in Edmonton.

Apple Wit is the latest release in the 15th anniversary series and as the name makes obvious is a Belgian-style wit with apple additions. I tasted it in the conditioning tank a couple weeks ago and the apple notes were quite pronounced. In the bottle – which has been bottle conditioned – the apple becomes more subdued, the spicy wit character comes up and the beer generally dries out more. It reminded me of Unibroue’s Ephemere in a way. It is not a traditional wit, lacking the citrus and coriander, which may rankle some, but I enjoyed the experiment. I wonder had they force carbonated rather than bottled conditioned if the apple would remain like it was in the conditioning tank? I enjoyed the apple character.

Black IPA will be the last of the 15th Anniversary series. This one is not out, and won’t be for a few weeks yet, but Neil over at Alley Kat gave me a taste of the test batch. With some tweaking, it could be the best of the 15th Anniversary beer. At the moment it has a strong dark malt sweetness, and even some roast, upfront followed by a strong hop finish. We discussed knocking back the dark malt a touch to allow a bit more of the IPA to assert itself. Looking forward to this one.