Brewers generally agree that there are two ways to design a pumpkin beer—go for a harvest-style ale that highlights the vegetal flavors of the pumpkin itself or dig into the spice rack and make a beer that mimics a pumpkin pie … unless, of course, you’re making a pumpkin-enhanced stout or porter, in which case pumpkin can add an umami-like background complexity with perhaps a dash of spice; or a barrel-aged pumpkin brew with oaky notes of bourbon or rum; or even a spontaneously fermented pumpkin sour such as Allagash Brewing’s Ghoulschip (Portland, Maine); or a Brett-fermented pumpkin ale such as Elysian Brewing’s Headless Horsey (Seattle, Washington).
As the cult-like obsession with pumpkin beers intensifies—pumpkin beers are typically the top-selling seasonal release among breweries that make them—brewers are finding inventive ways to explore the fringes of this once gimmicky style.
The Great Pumpkin
It’s said that, years ago, Elysian Founder Dick Cantwell and fellow brewers made a pumpkin ale, and it was pretty good. They tried again, and it was terrible. So they made a third batch and invited a few hundred friends to the Seattle-based brewery for a tasting party.
A decade later, Elysian’s annual Great Pumpkin Beer Festival attracts 4,000 people over two days and serves about eighty different pumpkin beers from breweries near and far, including roughly twenty varieties from Elysian itself. The fest is perhaps the greatest concentration of pumpkin beers on the planet and a living laboratory for brewers to see how far they can take the style.
“With so many [pumpkin beers] under our belt, it’s fun to challenge each other and say, ‘Okay, what’s the next thing? How much farther can we spread our wings within pumpkin?’ says Elysian Head Brewer Josh Waldman. “I don’t know if there is a limit.”
One thing that Waldman and fellow brewers agree on—as does the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB), according to recent labeling guidelines—is that a pumpkin beer must contain at least a little bit of actual pumpkin, “otherwise it’s a pumpkin-spice beer,” he says.
Elysian uses mostly Golden Delicious pumpkins in its beers. The gourds are blanched, the pulp separated and seeds removed, and delivered to Elysian as buckets of puréed pumpkin meat. Elysian brewers also frequently use canned pumpkin, such as Libby’s brand, especially when making smaller batches. “It’s really great for brewing,” Waldman says. Just be sure to use pure pumpkin purée rather than pumpkin-pie filling, which contains spices and preservatives.
Roasting the pumpkins first is another popular preparation. Some brewers cover sliced pumpkin chunks with sugar and roast them in a convection oven to impart a little sweetness to the meat. Elysian, however, relies on its grain bill—specifically specialty malts such as caramel and Munich malts—to balance the raw pumpkin flavor.
“You want a little bit of that gourdy character, “ Waldman says, “but if you can soften up the vegetal quality with a touch of caramel on the palate, that sets up a nice base for any spicing that you’re going to do.”
Depending on what form the pumpkins are in when added to the mash tun, it’s also wise to adjust gravity calculations to compensate for the portion of water in the pumpkin. “Brix-wise it’s pretty low, but if you take a bunch of puréed pumpkin and drop it in, it’s likely going to drop your gravity,” Waldman says. “We keep notes and have learned from experience. We can also compensate by adjusting successive batches or successive brews.”
Elysian does most of its spicing on the cold side, just a few days before packaging, to impart more subtle spice flavors and aroma to the beer. Spices added on the hot side will have a more dominant presence in the finished beer, but also run the risk of becoming bitter if allowed to steep too long. “Less is more when it comes to spicing, unless you want to crank something up because that’s what you’re going for,” Waldman says. “We also schedule a few extra days in the conditioning tank in case a batch needs an extra dose. It’s all done according to taste.”
Bottled Nostalgia
Geoff Logan, head brewer at AleWerks Brewing Company in Williamsburg, Virginia, modeled his spiced Pumpkin Ale after his mother’s pumpkin pie. He uses biscuit malt and Munich malt to mimic the toasty notes of the graham-cracker crust, along with crystal malt and pale malt to balance the pumpkin and spice flavors in the filling. He also adds lactose, which mimics the whipped-cream topping and also adds body and a creamy texture. “It’s like bottled nostalgia,” he says.
Contrary to popular thought, Logan finds that using roasted and puréed butternut squash gives him a sweeter, richer, and nuttier flavor than actual pumpkin. “We tested a whole bunch of pie pumpkins, but they were watery and runny and didn’t give us the same flavor,” Logan says. “It’s kind of odd, but the pumpkin tasted more like squash and the butternut squash tasted more like pumpkin.”
Logan adds bags of the squash purée and hops to the wort throughout an hour-long boil, then flames out and adds some spices to the kettle. He then pitches Whitbread ale yeast, let’s the beer ferment, and adds packets of dry spice at the end before filtering and packaging. “We went the pie route, for sure,” Logan says of the beer.
Logan is working with Frank Clark, director of the Historic Foodways department at nearby Colonial Williamsburg and a beer historian, to develop a pumpkin beer that’s more in line with the colonial history of the style. AleWerks currently brews three historic beer styles that are served in the taverns and sold in gift shops at Colonial Williamsburg.
“Pumpkin is a New World plant and was readily available to the colonists,” Clark says. “The beer was probably tan to brown in color, with a little bit of sweetness and pumpkin flavor, along with the hops. Sometimes they’d add ginger and maybe molasses, as well.”
Clark notes that eighteenth-century colonists experimented with pumpkins, squash, and all manner of adjuncts to brew beer, especially as they moved farther away from ports and rivers with access to imported goods such as English-made ale. “There’s even a recipe published in the Virginia Gazette for a beer made from green corn stalks,” Clark says. “That was also around the time they were debating and passing the Nonimportation Agreements, which included ale. They made beer from whatever ingredients they had on hand and probably tried just about everything.”
All Hail the King
Pumking, from Lakewood, New York’s Southern Tier Brewing Co., is one of today’s most highly rated pumpkin beers and the beer that helped kick-start the pumpkin craze when it was first released in 2007. The brewery released roughly 25,000 barrels of Pumking last year, according to Head Brewer Dustin Hazer, and will introduce four-packs of 12-ounce bottles, as well as 22-ounce bombers, with this year’s release. “We never really stop thinking about it. The beer is never totally off our minds,” Hazer says of the seasonal favorite.
Pumking is made with about one third of a pound of roasted and pureed pumpkin per barrel in the mash, which lends a golden color and a softer mouthfeel, as well as a subtle pumpkin character that’s not overwhelmingly vegetal, Hazer says. Brewers use a hopback to add a proprietary spice blend, which is designed to add a sweet, dessert-like aroma.
Hazer fields numerous inquiries and comments from fans about Pumking year-round, he says. Many want to know whether the recipe or spice blend has changed from one release to another—it hasn’t—and many are homebrewers looking for insight into making pumpkin beers.
Like Waldman, Hazer advises a less-is-more approach when spicing, especially with spices added on the hot side. He also advises homebrewers to be careful about when and how much pumpkin they add to the mash, so it doesn’t become too sticky and thick. “Knowing your raw materials and using the best-quality ingredients you can is key,” Hazer says. “Half the fun of craft brewing is playing around with unique ingredients and figuring out what ratio to use.”
“Pumpkin beers are very labor- and ingredient-intensive beers to make,” he says. “But it’s definitely worth it, especially when you see the enjoyment that people get out of it for a couple of months each year.”