Pumpkin ale - it's one of humanity's oldest dreams. Aristotle wrote that it was known to the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia, but the complex recipe mysteriously disappeared from the pages of history. Leonardo da Vinci made drawings of a gear-driven ale pumpkinizer, but died before he could try to build one. Today it's a reality, thanks to an alliance between elite pumpkin farmers and high tech brewers.
Pumpkin ales are available at this time of year from coast to coast. If you're persistent and use all the resources available to you, you may find pumpkin ale on tap at a brew pub that's close enough for you to visit. You can almost certainly find some kind of pumpkin ale in bottles on a local retailer's shelves. And depending on where you live, you may be able to order some online via the Internet and have it delivered to your door.
I've been having pumpkin ales from four different brewers, all from 12-oz. bottles sold as sixpacks. All were fresh, brewed just a few weeks before I drank them. The lineup ...
First up: Blue Moon "Harvest Moon" Pumpkin Ale. Clove, allspice, nutmeg ... and pumpkin. The pumpkin really comes through - but this was my least favorite one. Needs a better blend of spices - or at least more of the spices.
Blue Moon beers are brewed in Canada.
Next up: Shipyard Pumpkinhead. This is a wheat-based ale with pumpkin flavoring. The flavor is subtle and understated. It smacks (just barely) of pumpkin - and little else. The foam head dissipates quickly and the beer is very "light". It might be good at a picnic in the afternoon of a hot day in midsummer or Indian summer. I find it too "dry" and subtle for my liking, but slightly preferable to the Blue Moon (above).
Shipyard beers are brewed and bottled in Portland, Maine.
This year's batch of Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale is heartily spiced. I get a lot of "clove". But the pumpkin flavor is more or less overwhelmed by the spices. If it were a blind taste test and I wasn't told what it was, I might think it was just "winter holiday ale". I might not even recognize pumpkin as part of the equation. This ale is made with barley malts and not just wheat, which gives it a little more "depth". I'd take it over the Shipyard and Blue Moon entries (above).
The Buffalo Bill's brewery and brewpub is in Hayward, California.
My favorite, but only by a nose: Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale, brewed by Anheuser-Busch at Fort Collins, Colorado. It's spiced in a way that's reminiscent of a run of the mill pumpkin pie (all the ones I've ever had), but with a lighter, defter hand - not as overdone in the spices category as this year's edition of the Buffalo Bill's.
If you "don't know Jack's ..." then I'm one up on you.
Are any of these bottled pumpkin ales "great beer" ..? Negatory. But if you could find one drawn fresh from a tap, that could be interesting.
Dogfish Head Brewery makes a pumpkin ale that might be worth trying, on tap or (more likely for you to find) in a bottle. They're not available in my area yet.
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