Pumpkin Beer
Don't base your pumpkin ale tastings off of something like Blue Moon Pumpkin (as a side note that's made by Coors). Go out and try something like Dogfish Head Punkin Ale, Smuttynose Pumpkin, or Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin. You'll have a whole new respect for the pumpkin ales.
I recently just brewed up one based on the brewers notes at Smuttynose: http://www.smuttynose.com/pages/comment … hor2064798 (lots of good brewing notes on that page by the way)
Here was the recipe I ended up with:
http://fatboydeluxe.com/blog/recipes/Ichabod_Ale.htm
Grain:
1.00 lb British carastan
0.50 lb Crystal 60L
12.00 lb Belgian pilsener
Hops:
1.50 oz Cascade pellet 45 minutes
1.00 oz Cascade pellet 15 minutes
1.00 oz Liberty pellet 0 minutes
Yeast:
European Ale yeast 1338 Wyeast smackpack - created starter
Extras:
1.75 lb. can of Libby's Pumpkin Puree in the mash
Pumpkin Pie Spice 1 tbsp at flameout
Whirfloc clarifying tablet @ 5 mintues left
Now I'm only posting the recipe to give you an example of a pumpkin ale. I haven't really tasted it yet as it's just getting tranfered to secondary this evening (and I will taste it then), so it's far from a proven recipe.
DT
that looks like a good one
what was you OG and what will the FG be?
I made something close to that and I was at 1.065 and shooting for 1.002 ish
weeee
beer is good for you
Pumpkin ale is worth the time. I made two 5 gallon batches last year and was a big hit. Right now I have some sitting for me to bottle. It has a complex flavor and does well to let it age a bit longer then other brews.
Austin
I have one that was supposed to be for last Thanksgiving and never made it to the kegerator, so I'm going to see how a year of aging does. I basically made a light porter/dark amber ale and added pumpkin pie spices. It's tasting extremely good right now, you get that pumpkin pie spice initially and then it fades into hops and malt. You don't taste the spice after about half the glass, I think the spices are easy to overdo sometimes.
I must admit, it would be a cool drink for Halloween.
But, I wonder if it would be better to make wine out of pumpkin rather than ale?
I don't think pumpkin wine would taste that good, then again I've never had any. I think grapes have the monopoly on wine ingredients.