Pumpkin Beer Tasting + Birthday Recaps

Here’s a recap of my pumpkin beer tasting party and Birch’s celebration!

Birthday week (and month!) is wrapping up!

I think the highlight for me was at Birch’s party when he received a scorpion LEGO and he looked at me, smiled, and looked back at his friends and said, “My mom and I are both Scorpios.” He and I really are two peas in a pod, personality-wise!

I am totally caked out at this point, which might be good going into a weekend of candy! Please bring on the fall salads and roasted veggies!

My 2026 Bday Party

Katie and I have our birthdays two days apart, so we have done a joint party the last few years.

This year, instead of a bar crawl, we decided to keep things a bit more low-key and I hosted a pumpkin beer tasting at my house.

If you recall my tastings back in 2012 and 2014, this was not my first pumpkin beer tasting. However, this one was a bit more laid back. There was no formal blind tasting, but we sampled and rated a handful of the best! (Sadly, we couldn’t find Pumking at the last minute!)

I printed out a bunch of little tasting cards, and we wrote the name of the beer, our rating on a scale of 1-10, and notes about the taste.

We had a few UVA PhD scientists who decided to compute the results by hand on the spot rather than using a computer!

The Best Pumpkin Beers (and Their Averages)

Schlafly – 8.56
2 Silos – 7.77
Alewerks – 7.6
Starr Hill – 6.75
Atomic – 6.66
Dogfish – 6.56
Pumqueen Cider – 4.75

Of course, we snacked on cheese, crackers, pretzels, hummus, carrots, and Katie’s epic whipped feta dip.

Ivy The Baker

We’re not sure how serious she is, but Ivy wants to open a bakery, so she offered to make the cake(s)! She made a pumpkin layer cake with buttercream and a key lime cheesecake that were both AMAZING!

(For those who asked on IG, these are the Quince Bella Jeans!)

Afterward, we had a few karaoke performances and then played Quiplash and murder trivia on my TV while drinking lots of water!

Birch’s Bash

The next day, Sunday, I played a morning soccer game, and then Thomas and I celebrated Birch. T got a bounce house and these blow-up human balls, and we had pizza and cake. The kids didn’t stop moving for three hours straight!

10.26

Then on Monday, the fun continued with my actual birthday! (Birch’s is 10.29!) After all the weekend celebrations, I simply wanted a day filled with my favorite things.

Coffee and oatmeal

And some reading from this book that a friend got me!

I headed to the gym for Monday morning Flex class.

Maddie got me the new anniversary ACAC sweatshirt, which is so comfy I haven’t taken it off! And of course I wore my Scorpio shirt all day post-shower.