Pumpkin Beer 2007

Last night I finally had an opportunity to bottle my pumpkin beer (brewed on Sept. 24th, blogged here). Angelos was kind enough to rack it over to a secondary fermenter for me (thanks man!), so it didn’t sit on the spent yeast and other sediment for too long.

As I indicated in that previous blog, quite a bit didn’t go according to plan, and I was curious as to how this beer would come out. But as I opened the fermenting bucket, the aroma was amazing. The pie spice aroma was very rich, and had hints of maple and pumpkin in it, despite the beer being rather thin (and very light if not golden in color). Gravity reading was 1.010, which is what I guessed it might get down to, putting it at a commercially standard 5.6% alcohol by volume.

Tasting notes: It’s a dry beer, though smooth and highly drinkable. Mild hop taste is dwarfed by cloves, followed by nutmeg and cinnamon. Pumpkin went right to the aroma, as did the maple syrup, though there are traces of it in the finish.

I believe this one, provided the yeast is still slightly active, will be ready to drink this weekend, as there are no sugars remaining in the beer for the yeast to work on. Provided it’s still somewhat active, the priming sugar should be mostly eaten and converted (mainly to carbon dioxide) by the weekend.

So a mighty dessert beer this is not. But a good seasonal session ale this will be.