Review of my Maple Wheat and Pumpkin Ale

The Maple Wheat took roughly a month to bottle age properly.  Note, I did not add a second dose of yeast prior to bottling, which probably would have helped me here.  Nonetheless, I have beer now and it took a little longer to complete.  

The Maple Wheat beer, which I've dubbed as Maple Madness has a nice Amber brown color to it and is reminiscent of a Hefeweizen.  It is technically of the style weizenbock.  One thing to note is that it is a much stronger beer than a Hefeweizen, and the recipe estimated it would be around an 8% ABV beer.  My final calculation determined it came out to 6.83% ABV, but I suspect it to be possibly a bit higher and in the 7.0-8.0 ABV range.  It is a smooth easy to drink beer, especially if you're a Hefeweizen fan.  It has hints of Maple in the aftertaste, hints of clove in the nose, and holds a good foamy white head.  After two of these guys I'm in a pretty good mood, so be careful.  I would brew this again, but maybe make some of my own modifications to further enhance the recipe.

The Pumpkin Ale I tried came out pretty well also.  It did not have as much Pumpkin Pie spice flavor as I had hoped, so I'll add more next time.  It finished conditioning about 1 1/2 weeks after bottling.

It has a nice dark orange color to it, and a reasonable head.  It is a typical Pumpkin Ale, and is not the best, but not at all a bad beer to sit down and relax with at Thanksgiving.  I plan on bringing a few of these with me November 24 to enjoy with dinner.  It has a nice subtle Pumpkin flavor to it, and is not at all over hopped (just right in my opinion.)  The beer came in with a 5.25% ABV which is right about what I was expecting.  I will try a few different things the next time I brew this one.