Beer Tasting: Pumpkin Ale 2015

My latest pumpkin ale is nearing the end of its run this year, so I wanted to do a tasting before the keg was kicked. I've served this beer to a number of friends, to rave reviews (well, except for one person who doesn't like any pumpkin beer, period, but I accept that the style isn't for everyone!). It has done a good job of satisfying my pumpkin beer cravings for another year.

• The Basics
• Original gravity = 1.064; final gravity = 1.017; abv = 6.2%; estimated IBU = 13
• Appearance
• The beige head is of a medium consistency on the bubbles, moderate in size, and quite persistent. The beer itself is clear and medium amber in color, with no evident haze.
• Aroma
• This beer smells just like pumpkin pie with whipped cream on top! I pick up vanilla and nutmeg fairly prominently, with a faint vegetal/pumpkin background. Somewhat surprisingly, I don't get any cinnamon immediately on the aroma, but I think that's my nose. A freshly poured glass sampled later had a very prominent cinnamon aroma. I detect no distinct malt or hops aroma.
• Flavor
• The flavor is moderately malty, with a light caramel character. Bitterness is moderate too, and evenly balanced against the malts. I don't really pick up much spicing, if any, in the flavor itself, except perhaps a hint of cinnamon at the finish.
• Mouthfeel
• The body is moderate, with good carbonation as I would like in a beer like this. It has a slightly sweet finish, which pleasantly lingers.
• Would I brew this again?
• Yes! Overall, this beer drinks quite smoothly and has the spices very well balanced (to my palate), so it's more than the typical pumpkin ale which is just a lager with some cinnamon and nutmeg. This is a very solid recipe, and the beer was well-received by most people who have sampled it. My only minor change might be to dial back the cinnamon a touch next time, but that's an easy fix.
• Overall
• 8.5/10

Pumpkin Ale 2015 Update

Today I kegged my Pumpking Ale 2015. The final gravity is 1.017, down from 1.064, which equates to 6.2% abv. The beer has a beautiful golden color as well as a tasty, cinnamon-forward flavor. I am eagerly awaiting the chance to sample this in carbonated form!

Pumpkin Ale 2015

Pumpkin beers are perhaps one of the most divisive styles I know, and for good reason. Too many take the "just add spice" approach, and are basically a light lager with an overdose of cinnamon and nutmeg. However, I know that there are good pumpkin beers out there, as evidenced by some reasonable success on last year's pumpkin ale. Following a string of successes with recipes from Gordon Strong's Modern Homebrew Recipes, I opted to give his pumpkin ale recipe a try (in very slightly modified form to adjust for ingredient availability). His recipe is intriguing for its sheer amount of pumpkin--9 pounds--as well as for its complex grain bill that I think will make the background beer more interesting in its own right.

Pumpkin Ale 2015

• 5 lbs. Golden Promise malt
• 3 lbs. Vienna malt
• 2 lbs. Munich II ("Dark Munich") malt
• 0.5 lbs. brown malt
• 1 lbs. flaked oats
• 1 lbs. flaked wheat
• 1 lb. Belgian Caramel Vienne malt (17 SRM)
• 0.25 lb. pale chocolate malt (225 SRM)
• 9 lbs. Libby's pumpkin puree (5 large cans, added at vorlauf and transferred to boil kettle in bag)
• 3 oz. Grandma’s Original Molasses
• 0.5 lb. Turbinado sugar
• 1.65 oz. Hallertau hops pellets (4.3% alpha, 5.6% beta), 20 minute boil
• 1 tbs. 5.2 pH stabilizer (in mash)
• 1 Whirlfloc tablet (10 minute boil)
• 1 vial English Ale yeast (WLP002), in 1.5 L starter
• Spice blend including:
• 6 large sticks cinnamon, broken up and crushed
• 1.5 tbs. crystallized ginger, chopped up
• 1 whole nutmeg, coarsely ground
• 10 whole allspice, coarsely ground
• 2 vanilla beans, split, scraped, and chopped
• 4 black cardamom pods, peeled from husks and crushed
• 0.25 tsp. ground mace

Procedure

• Prior to brewing, I put the pumpkin puree into a few baking dishes, so that it formed a layer 1-2" thick in each. I roasted the pumpkin in a 400° oven for 1.5 hours, stirring it up every 15 to 20 minutes. By the end of this, a lot of the excess moisture had been driven off and the pumpkin had darkened up a bit too. After it all cooled, I placed it in a big mesh grain bag and set it aside for the mash
• I mashed in the grains with 5.1 gallons of water at 168°. The mash stabilized at around 156°, and was down to 154° after 40 minutes. After 60 minutes, I added the pumpkin and 1 gallon of water at 180°. I vorlaufed after 15 minutes, drained the mash tun, and added 4.1 gallons of water at 185°. I let this sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and drained the rest of the wort. I transferred the pumpkin over to the boil kettle, and let it steep while the wort came to a boil.
• In total, I collected 7.5 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.050, which equates to 68% efficiency.
• I brought the wort to a boil, and at this point removed the pumpkin. I saved the pumpkin to recycle for a pumpkin soup. The wort boiled for 60 minutes total. I added the hops during the last 20 minutes, a Whirlfloc tablet during the last 10 minutes, and the spices at flameout. I let the spices sit in the hot wort for 10 minutes, before removing them and chilling the wort as usual.
• Once I had cooled the wort down around 80°, I transferred it to the fermenter and pitched the yeast. (The yeast had been cold-crashed, so I decanted most of the spent starter).
• Starting gravity was 1.064, a touch higher than initially predicted (1.060). The cinnamon is pretty prominent--I am a little worried that it might be too much so (I suspect the recipe's 6 cinnamon sticks were smaller than the one's I used!), but maybe that worry will be unfounded. I started fermentation on October 3. The beer was happily krausened when I checked on it ~12 hours later, and had a robust fermentation. I will leave it in primary for at least 2 weeks.

Beer Tasting: Andy's Pumpkin Ale 1.0

Before this beer got too far along, I wanted to do a critical tasting of my pumpkin ale. I've only got a few bottles left, and have been enjoying these through the winter months. Pumpkin ales (and pumpkin spice anything) are a bit of a trend these days, which has resulted in no shortage of commercial examples that (in my taste opinion) range from mediocre to delicious. Not one to dodge a beer bandwagon, it seemed like a good idea to brew one. As you'll see below, yes, it was a good idea!

• Basics
• Original gravity = 1.060; final gravity = 1.012; abv = 6.3%
• Aroma
• A hint of nutmeg and pumpkin (the savory vegetable aroma from freshly cooked pumpkin). Very nicely balanced--not a "spice bomb."
• Appearance
• Thick off-white head with excellent staying power; a creamy appearance and feel to the head. The beer itself is brilliantly clear, with a rich golden hue (the picture really doesn't do it justice). This is about as beautiful as it gets.
• Flavor
• Hard to describe, in a good way. Very lightly malty, with a pleasant but not overwhelming bitterness. I definitely pick up the nutmeg--distinct, but not overpowering--but the cinnamon is much more subtle; basically, just a little zing on the finish. 
• Mouthfeel
• Perhaps a touch overcarbonated. That aside, the mouthfeel is pretty smooth, just as I'd hope for something with pumpkin.
• Would I brew this again?
• Absolutely! I might dial back the carbonation just a notch, but otherwise this is pretty much the perfect pumpkin ale. The vegetable, malt, and spices are well balanced, and the body is full enough that it's not like a lager with spice added. This recipe is going into the yearly rotation. I'll also note that it has aged very well, and is just as tasty (if not more) after two months.
• Overall rating
• 8/10

Andy's Pumpking Ale 1.0 Update

I only recently realized that I didn't post details on the fermentation and bottling of my pumpkin ale.

After brewing on 13 October 2014, and ~2 weeks of fermentation and conditioning, I bottled on 26 October 2014. Final gravity was 1.012, down from a starting gravirty of 1.060. This works out to 6.3% abv.

I primed a mini-keg (5 L) with 1.5 tbs. of corn sugar, and filled up the keg. I had 3.5 gallons left, and wanted to aim for 2.4 volumes of CO2. Thus, I carbonated with 3 oz. of corn sugar boiled in 2 cups of water. The end yield was 18 12-oz. bottles, 5 22-oz. bottles, and 6 18-oz. bottles.

After a few weeks of conditioning, I sampled some bottles. The beer is more carbonated than I like--I suspect this may be due in part to not stirring the beer sufficiently after adding the priming sugar. I also suspect some secondary fermentation is involved, due to the high carbonation in the keg, too.

I took a bottle to my local homebrew club meeting, and the brew overall got pretty decent marks from the crew. Our club president deemed it as nicely balanced, and I would tend to agree. This is definitely a recipe I'll be trying again!

A formal tasting evaluation will follow later.

Andy's Pumpkin Ale 1.0

In the continued quest to expand my brewing repertoire, while also focusing on styles that I like to drink (sorry, lambics and barleywines), today I took aim at a pumpkin ale. This was inspired by the efforts of my paleontological brewing colleague Penny Higgins, as well as by a recent issue of Brew Your Own (BYO) magazine.

Grinding the Cinnamon

The recipe itself was based on BYO's recipe for a Smuttynose Brewing Co. Pumpkin Ale clone. I tweaked the hops a bit based on my supply (and the desire not to open an extra bag if I didn't have to). Additionally, I decided to increase the amount of pumpkin over the original recipe; 4 oz. of puree just didn't seem like much, and I wanted a distinct pumpkin flavor. We had some homemade pumpkin puree in the deep freeze, so I thawed that out for this recipe.

So the spices...the recipe called for 0.14 oz. each of ground cinnamon and nutmeg, with a pinch of ground cloves. I grated up the appropriate amount of nutmeg from a fresh nut, and decided to grate up a stick of cinnamon bark too. However, after "grating" ended up more as "shredding", I elected to use the trusty mortar-and-pestle for the cinnamon as well as the cloves. The result was a whole pile of absolutely delicious smelling (and fresh!) spices.

Andy's Pumpkin Ale 1.0 (modified from Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale Clone)

• 10.75 lbs. 2-row malt
• 0.9 lbs. Carastan malt
• 0.25 lbs. 60°L crystal malt
• 12.5 oz. (0.78 lbs.) homemade pumpkin puree
• 0.5 lbs. rice hulls
• 1.25 oz. Cascade hops (whole; 75 minute boil)
• 0.25 oz. Liberty hops (4.5% alpha, 3.5% beta; pellets; 15 minute boil)
• 0.75 oz. Cascade hops (whole; 10 minute boil)
• 0.75 oz. Liberty hops (4.5% alpha, 3.5% beta; pellets; added at flame-out)
• 1 tsp. Irish moss (10 minute boil)
• 0.14 oz. ground cinnamon bark
• 0.14 oz. ground nutmeg
• 2 cloves, ground
• 1 vial California Ale yeast (White Labs #WLP001), in 1.5 L starter
• 1 tbs. of 5.2 pH stabilizer

Procedure

• The day before brewing, I made up a yeast starter. See this post for details.
• I added the rice husks to the mash tun, and then added the milled grains. I mashed in with 3.75 gallons of water at 172°. After this, the temperature was a little high (~160°), so I added an extra 0.25 gallons of cold tap water to bring the mash temperature down a bit, to 158°. After 10 minutes, the mash had stabilized to 154°, and to 150° after 60 minutes. Note to self--next let the mash sit a bit longer before worrying about lowering the temperature with cold water. I probably would have been okay without futzing with it.
• I added 0.5 gallons of water at 195° and let it sit for 15 minutes. From this, I collected ~3.1 gallons of wort over 15 minutes. It had a delicious, sweet flavor--definitely pumpkin!
• Then, I added 3.25 gallons of water at 186°, and let it sit for 15 minutes. The temperature was around 165°. Then, I collected the second runnings.
• I collected a total of 6.5 gallons of wort, with a gravity of 1.051 at 60°. This works out to a mash efficiency of ~77%. I can live with that!
• Once the wort was at a boil, I added the first round of Cascade hops. Additions proceeded per the schedule above.
• Upon flame-out, I added the final addition of Liberty hops as well as the spices. I gave it a good stir, and let it sit for around 15 minutes.
• Next, I cooled the wort using my chiller. I had recently read that siphoning ice water through the copper coil can help drop the wort the last few degrees needed for fermentation. So, I tried this trick, and it worked quite well! I was able to knock another 10° off the wort temperature at the end, quite quickly, down to 74°.
• I pitched the yeast starter, which brought the volume in the fermenter up to 5 gallons exactly. Then, I placed the fermenter in my fermenting chamber, which is set at 68°.
• The starting gravity is 1.060 (at 60°). I brewed this batch on 13 October 2014.
• The wort is a gorgeous orangish color, with a distinct yet not overwhelming spice taste and aroma. I hope that this holds through fermentation!