Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

   Since it is getting into the fall season, I decided it was time to make a pumpkin beer of my own. So off to Wine Warehouse to get some samples to see what I like and dislike. Two bottles jump out at me - Dogfish Head's Punkin Ale and Weyerbacher's Imperial Pumpkin Ale.
   First tasting the Doghead Fish. Nice amber color, nice head, yahdah-yahdah all that is expected of a commercial brew. It fell quickly with the taste. To me it had very little pumpkin flavor and only a small nose of it. What it did have in abundance is spices. Enough to burn the back of my throat for the rest of the night and waking up the next day I still had a slight tingling. I like Dogfish Head's beers but this one was definetly a no-go for me anymore. Lesson learned for my pumpkin brew don't open the spice bottle and dump the entire contents out.
   Second tasting the Weyerbacher's Imperial Pumpkin Ale. Same beginning as the Dogfish, good head, color but as I took a taste a world of difference. A more prevelent pumpkin flavor with the spices assisting in the pumpkin pie-ish flavor, not overpowering it. The ale itself was creamier tasting than Dogfish's version and it added to the overall presentation and improved it on my opinion. Only problem was not enough pumpkin flavor for my taste(i love myself some pumpkin pie so may be biased on my views!).
   Recommend the Weyerbacher's to anyone wishing for a good pumpkin ale. As a side note I will be making a tea with the spices I'll be using so I can add it to the secondary in increments so as not to overpower.  I'll also be baking the 60 oz. of pumpkin to caramelize before adding to the boil pot. So hopefully lots of pumpkin flavor will come through.

Happy Drinking!

Good stuff, Peter.

I've made a few pumpkin beers in the past, and the key is the spices.  You can add a little bit of them (cinnamon, vanilla, allspice, etc.) at the end of the bottle and then the rest to taste in secondary.  Your plan is a good one, because I've overdone the spices and it can leave you with something undrinkable.

As far as the pumpkin goes, you can skip that all together if you like.  Pumpkin meat doesn't really add that much "pumpkin" flavor and if you are gonna get something out of it, you'll want to bake the pumpkin and add it to a mash to get some of the taste you are looking for.

Brooklyn's Post Road Pumpkin is where its at for my money. Outside of homebrew that is. Good luck with the brew.

I have never brewed a pumpkin beer, so take this advice with a grain of salt.  From what I read the best thing you can do to get more pumpkin flavor is find cooking or baking pumpkins.  These are small little pumpkins and not at all the same as the jack-o-lantern pumpkins that are everywhere this time of year.  Apparently, the baking pumpkins are more flavorful.  You prepare them as you would normal pumpkins.  I read that you remove the seeds, section them, and then bake them skin-side down for about an hour in a 350 degree oven.  This brings out the flavor and a little carmalization of sugars.  I think I saw the recipe calling for 4 to 5 of the little pumpkins for a 5 gallon batch.  Then you add half of them to your mash tun (mash with the sections right in there, skin and all) and you add the other half, meat-only, the the boil kettle with 15 min to go until the end of the boil.

That is all I know.  I have not tried this technique, but read it either on the Tech Talk forums or somewhere else.

I agree with Greg on that one.  I tried New Holland's Ichabod this year and it they must have changed the recipe. Disappointed because it's much lighter now and not as flavorful as the same beer several years ago.  I've tried a bunch of pumpkin ales (including the Weyerbacher and Dogfish Head beers mentioned previously) and I think Post Road is one of the best mixes of pumpkin and spices in an amber beer that I have had.

Well, I'm very disappointed to hear that Dogfish Head's Pumpkin Ale THIS YEAR is all spices.  LAST year's was WONDERFULLY

(don't know how that happened, but I'll continue)

Last year's Dogfish Head Pumpkin was WONDERFULLY PUMPKIN, with very subtle spices.  I'm really disappointed to hear it's not that way, this batch.

Totally contrary to what I knew. 

OK, so heres an update..

  Tried some more pumpkin varieties (I'm calling it research for my own brew!)this past week - Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale, Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale , and Southern Tier Imperial Pumking.
  Buffalo Bill's has a fantastic pumpkin smell and flavor to it. Easy drinking and not overloaded on spice. Although even I , who doesn't care for an overspiced pumpkin ale, thought it was a little weak on the spices. But, since I like pumpkin so much I enjoyed my glass.
  Smuttynose is ok. Nothing stood out to me. It wasnt great but it wasn't terrible either. Standard color and taste. Not overdone on the spices with a hint of pumpkin smell/flavor. I see it as a "safe" pumpkin ale to try to see if you like this seasonal ale.
  Southern Tier on the other hand had me dreaming it was thanksgiving and the turkey mojo was just closing my eyes. Just barely keeping them open so that I can devour a slice of pumpkin pie! This beer had a great aroma from it. It not only had pumpkin but it was like pumpkin pie. The spices were fantastic, not too much but enough to get the flavor across. It even tasted wonderful after I got done sticking my nose into the glass to enjoy the smells. A little creamy and easy to drink, not much bite and very sweet. Everything I think a good pumpkin beer should have.
  Hopefully my beer I'm brewing today will have some of this goodness into it.

Happy Brewing 

Perhaps your pumpkin research could be presented as a beer style at an upcoming meeting?  Or, if not, at least give us an update on what you found and how we can use it too.

If pumpkin ale is anything like pumpkin bread you're just as well off using Libby's 100% Pumpkin (NOT PUMPKIN PIE MIX!!).  It's in the stores in canned form.  In my experience works just as well as cooking down pumpkin from scratch.  If you absolutely must use non canned pumpkins absolutely use cooking pumpkins rather than jack-o-lantern pumpkins.  Jacko's are horrible for cooking. 

But it's really much more trouble than it's worth to cook down pumpkins.  Libby's works just as well.


As to Dogfish head's punkin ale.  They're a really variable brewery.  I sort of like that about them.  Punkin ale is some years the best thing ever and other years merely palatable.  They have a wonderful restaurant attached to their brewery if anyone's ever in the rehobeth area. 

Did you find this around Cville?  I've been wanting to try it.

The Wine Warehouse usually carries Southern Tier brews.  I can't say if they carry THAT flavor, but they have ST.

   Ok, so an update. Pumpkin ale is in the secondary now about a week. Has a very nice pumpkin taste to it and Sunday will add the spice tea to it. I used 100% canned pumpkin (had the same idea of using real pumpkin Kim!) plus the baking for an hour helped give a toasted flavor to it. So far so good I'll keep you all updated after the spice is added.
   And yes Southern Tier pumpkin ale can be purchased at wine warehouse, sorry forgot to mention that fact! Before I moved to the C-Ville area I lived in Rochester, NY. Which is roughly a couple of hours from the Southern Tier brewery, who knew they were so good!

Peter, that is too funny.  I was born and raised in Rochester and lived there until I went to college in PA.  I lived in the town of Pittsford, a suburb on the southern side of the city.  My parents still live up there and we go to visit once a year or so.  Next time we head up there, I might have to take a detour to Southern Tier, as I have heard so much about them.

It really is a small world.  When I first moved to Cville, my room-mate (my wife was still finishing up grad school, so I split rent with a co-worker) was the weekend weatherman on Channel 13 in Rochester for 4 years.  One of my other co-worker's husband also grew up in Rochester.  Too funny . . .

good on ya.  Sounds like a good brew.

The wine warehouse was out when I checked in.  Tis the season for pumpkin ales though so I'll just check back in later.