Ahhh, it’s time for pumpkin beers, that uniquely American gourd ale.
Although the pumpkin beer obsession is waning, this time of year, we in the U.S.A. are still downing this Halloween gourd ale with abandon. Since there is no strict pumpkin beer definition (at least not in the BJCP Style Guidelines), varieties range from the mundane to the extreme, as this Best Products 15 Best Pumpkin Beers for Fall 2019 shows.
Looking up the origins of pumpkins, I was surprised to learn that its beginnings are from Mexico and the American southwest, not New England. With jack-o-lanterns for Halloween and pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, I had wrongly assumed the Massachuset Native Americans developed this cherished vegetable. (or is it a fruit?)
A few weeks ago we attended the 8th annual Frisco Taphouse Punktoberfest. Of their 53 beers on tap, about a quarter of them were Oktoberfest and pumpkin ales. Personally, I was focused on trying at least one crazy gourd beer. I started off with the extreme Rumpkin from Avery, a boozy 16.9% pumpkin/yam beer. It is well spiced with pumpkin pie flavors, caramel/molasses, and rum, and gave off a wonderful pumpkin puree aroma. Going the other extreme, I also sampled Dogfish Head’s Punkin. This is a classic pumpkin ale, a brown ale with pumpkin meat, brown sugar and spices. Nicely subtle.
I discovered one of Pierce’s beers, lost for a year in the chaos of my beer fridge. This 8+% ABV may be one of my all-time favorite pumpkin beers. I loved the abundance of pumpkin pie spices and a smoky, vanilla finish. Pierce is putting the rest of us homebrewers to shame.
Speaking of homebrewing, I started my second brew of the year, a pumpkin beer. With the help of my kids, I brewed the Maryland Homebrew pumpkin ale recipe, with a twist. I added a packet of Clarity Ferm from White Labs to reduce the gluten. I just added it when I added the yeast. I’ll keep you posted. This will be our traditional Thanksgiving ale. We usually put brown sugar on the pint glass rims just to make it interesting.
Cheers!
Warren
Cool…. A Gluten reduced Pumpkin Beer… Definitely let us know how that turns out. I’ve been thinking about using Clarity Ferm, but haven’t done much research on it.
I’m curious as well. Clarity Ferm is documented to reduce gluten and clarify beer. I hesitated to add it to my unfiltered pumpkin beer and lose all that fine pumpkin pulp. However, it will be our Thanksgiving beer and some of us are sensitive to gluten.