Brewery – MadTree
Beer – Pilgrim
Style – Pale Ale
ABV – 4.7%
IBUs – 14

This lightly hopped fall pale ale combines a canucopia of holiday flavors. Cranberry and vanilla complement the pleasant lemon and berry flavor of Pilgrim hops. Give thanks for a bountiful harvest, good friends, and great beer.

This has always been a popular beer in the fall for MadTree, and the first label approval went through the ttb well before the opening of their MadTree 2.0 facility, which left them unable to produce it to a scale large enough to get it packaged until this year.  Thank the beer gods that they did!

I have gained a new appreciation for this beer so far this season, pairing it up with all sorts of dishes, not just the traditional Thanksgiving meal.    The beer seems to stand up, and compliment all kinds of foods, from spicy pork dishes, to sweet barbecue, it’s versatile and fun.  Of course, the beer goes pretty well with a night parked on the couch watching football too… something else I can attest to.

Previous years of this beer (on draft only of course) also featured an addition of walnuts to go alongside the fall flavors of cranberry and vanilla, but the brewery decided that they not only didn’t really contribute too much to the flavor of Pilgrim, they made it all a little more difficult for people with nut allergies to enjoy the beer, so they were removed from this 2017 (and future, I assume) batches.

My Thoughts On MadTree Pilgrim

The beer pours a golden-orange color, with a small white head on top.

Aroma is a light vanilla, with a touch of sweet bready malt.

The taste is light, and refreshing… I get a slight puckering kick of the cranberry, alongside some lemony fruit and maybe just a kiss of vanilla to round it all out.

If you want to hear more about MadTree Pilgrim, you can head all the way back to Cincy Brewcast, Volume 1, Episode 36 where we not only drank the beer, but had some really great cupcakes that Tina whipped up to pair with it.