Jam Donut Round-Up!
I previously thought that jam doughnut taste in relation to beer was only really a beloved staple of the well known Welsh brewery - Tiny Rebel's - core range beer : Pump Up The Jam. It seemed as though few other breweries dared to attempt to replicate it (and some would claim that there is a reason why). When TR dared to release their imperial version (Turn it Up to 11), it really solidified the connection between jam doughnut flavours and Tiny Rebel for me. It wasn't until Facebook advertisements clearly picked up all the chat I was engaged in around the TIUT11 release that I started seeing ads from online bottle shops stocking Hot Fuzz - a beer from Leeds based brewery Wilde Child - aiming to also hit that jam donut flavour profile. From there, I did a quick google to check out if there were any others I had missed out on in relation to this niche representation of the bakery treat. This is where I found the Amundsen Barrel Aged Dessert In A Can : Peanut Butter Caramel Crisp Jam Doughnut. While it's a slight divergence from the straight up jam-only taste, I grabbed all the cans I could find mentioning jam donuts (those mentioned above) and waited for delivery.
Admittedly, I had already had the Turn It Up To 11 (TIUT11) after a friend sent me one to get rid of it (quite literally I offered to pay for it a few times and was told it was really fine, she just wanted it gone - thanks a lot, Helen!). After having tried it once, I felt zero need to try to seek it out again for this ranking exercise and the ones I did find, I was unwilling to trade anything rare to relive that awful first experience. It was sickly sweet in all the wrong ways and ended up tasting like I had been drinking baby sick (or what I imagine baby sick to taste like). The colour and overall appearance was like murky pond water instead of the "red on the eye" promised on the back of the can - a discrepancy that had sparked a lot of controversy in the beer community as it came across to many as either false advertising on Tiny Rebel's part or that Tiny Rebel were doubling down and refusing to admit there was a problem (the line "Colour is a spectrum" is now forever part of my favourite explanations to use when discussing "off" or ugly looking beer). Quite frankly, it looked oxidised... I was convinced it was oxidised by looking at the photos and seeing all the incredibly negative reviews saying it tasted horrible, but when it came time for me to taste it myself, I would say it certainly wasn't oxidised, it was just a very terrible (in my opinion) beer. Unbalanced, overly sweet, and undrinkable. It was a drain pour for both me and my husband and my face couldn't hide how truly revolting I thought it was. No disrespect intended to Tiny Rebel, but I struggle to see how this was truly made to somebody in the beer industry's taste buds unless that person (to put it more kind than pre-edit phrasing) is heading for a sugar overload. I could (and have) gone on for days about this one, but I'll park it here. Suffice it to say, it started off in the last place position of the tasting and I had no idea if anything could top it for how spectacularly poor it was.
With all 3 remaining in hand - Pump Up The Jam (PUTJ), Hot Fuzz, and BA Dessert - I was excited to get started. My first one of the session was the PUTJ, which I had picked up fresh from the Brewery in Newport on my week away to Wales in August (at the time of my tasting, it wasn't long after I got home from the trip so the can was still fresh - just FYI). At least this one I could confirm to be a light red-ish colour as per the tasting notes on the can. Though the foam from the head clings to the side of the glass, the overall layer disappears almost instantly. The appearance had a very light haze to it and an overall sickly-sweet, synthetic scent of frosting to it. While I have admittedly been really unimpressed lately with some of the PUTJ batches I've had since the start of lockdown and with Tiny Rebel overall since the start of 2020, I was thankful that this one wasn't too far off the flavour profile that I had grown to love when I first started drinking it. The raspberry jam comes out with strength. Though it's artificial in its sweetness, it wasn't too bad in terms of the raspberry element of the taste itself. For me, it did what it set out to achieve in that it tastes like a jam donut (though, again, I have had some cans since that seemed to either be a bad batch or a slight change in recipe where the raspberry jam tastes a bit off and it's more malty sweetness than a sugary one, but have only used this particular can as a reference point for the ranking). As far as the usual criticisms TR gets from the craft communities, it wasn't as artificial as some other TRs are, but it would be hard not to get any artificial taste through when your aim is to replicate a baked good. For a pale ale, it tasted less beer-like than other dessert themed pales I've tried and I would say it also tasted more watered down in depth of flavour than the PUTJ of days past.
Next in line was Hot Fuzz, a raspberry cream donut pale at 5% ABV. It shared that same similar frosting aroma as the PUTJ, but at a far lower strength and with less of an artificial edge to it. I felt like I could also make out a strawberry scent more so than raspberry, but a definite overall berriness made its way out of the glass. Its appearance was hazy as well, but far more like chicken soup than what you'd picture for a raspberry/jam donut. The colour was like an ombre of amber to gold to dark straw. Also, it held its soapy looking head better than its previous competitor. Unlike with PUTJ, this one had more of the "beer" element in the taste with a lingering sugary aftertaste. I would argue that the taste on this was far more artificial than on the PUTJ and that it was heavier on the cream than the raspberry. Because it does taste more like a beer, it doesn't quite achieve the full donut effect that it's going for in my opinion and I could see how the clash of beer with the sugary sweetness results in a negative experience for some, where they would find it hard to embrace. It came across as a bit flat to me when I hit the halfway mark and I do think it would get quite sickly if I were to have more than one. But, as a single beer, it was totally fine.
To finish, I cracked the can of BA delights from Amundsen and was met with a sweet and sticky caramel smell and what could almost be coconut (a toasted coconut, a la a bounty bar). Because I was specifically looking out for the jam, I think I could make out a faint hint of it (or that's the power of suggestion for you), but it wasn't nearly as central to the overall aroma as with the other 2 cans. After pouring it and giving it a bit of a swirl, it appeared syrupy, yet it wasn't actually physically thick in mouthfeel when drinking. With the first few sips, I easily got the caramel crisp with some mild nuttiness coming through, but NO jam donut... which felt like it made sense because it was easily one of the more subtle flavours included in this immense beer (after speaking to a friend, it seems like the barrel aging may have overpowered the jam donut notes and the original version pulls that flavour through more). The jam notes did start picking up and lingering in the aftertaste as I sipped on it for longer and the beer itself continued to warm, but it was still just too subtle for me to really consider this an accurate jam donut representation. There was such heavy booziness, however, that it was one more geared towards sipping on slowly than drinking at a session pace. It had some real depth and complexity in its flavour and it was a very pleasant beer overall. It was easily my favourite out of the bunch.
In terms of accuracy to the jam donut taste, I would rank them as follows : Pump Up The Jam (Tiny Rebel), Hot Fuzz (Wilde Child), Turn It Up To 11 (Tiny Rebel), then Dessert In A Can (Amundsen).
When it comes to personal preference and what I actually enjoyed drinking, I would rank them as follows: Dessert in a Can, Hot Fuzz, Pump Up The Jam, then Turn It Up To 11.