Homebrew: Pumpkin Ale

Despite the rain, I had a great day yesterday in my brewery putting together a pumpkin ale for the fall months ahead. This was a really fun brew; I got to use some unique ingredients, which was a welcomed departure from Reinheitsgebot-style brewing.

The interesting thing about pumpkin ales is that you really don't get much (if any) flavor from the pumpkin itself. In fact, you don't even need to use pumpkin to make a pumpkin ale--the flavors people identify as "pumpkin" are really pumpkin pie spices. So all you have to do is use a pumpkin pie spice blend in the boil and call it a pumpkin ale. But that wouldn't be any fun...I decided to use 6 lbs of pumpkin.

Before I even started brewing, I baked the pumpkin in the oven at 300 F for an hour to caramelize some of the sugars and produce some melanoidins. I then included the pumpkin in the mash with the grains, adding a pound of rice hulls to account for the husk-less pumpkin, thus preventing a stuck sparge. After mashing, I boiled as normal, using Magnum as a bittering hop and some Willamette as well as Saaz at 15 minutes for a little flavor. Also at 15 minutes, I added a cup each of cane (table) sugar and molasses. The sugar will help dry out the beer a little and lighten the body, balancing out the unfermentable sugars/starches in the pumpkin. The molasses will also help dry out the beer, while adding a unique flavor component to the overall character. Finally, at flame-out, I added a homemade spice blend containing 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ginger, and 1/8 tsp each of nutmeg and allspice. I'm fermenting the beer with a neutral ale yeast--I don't want any yeast characteristics overwhelming the pumpkin spices. Fermentation was extremely vigorous this morning (you can see the thick krausen forming on top in the picture above). The beer should be ready for drinking in 3-4 weeks, and I'm looking forward to serving it to the neighborhood kids on Halloween! Who the hell wants candy corn when you get have a pint of homebrewed pumpkin ale?!?!

Malt Madness Homebrew Competition

This past weekend I headed out to Allentown Brew Works in Allentown, PA to help judge the Malt Madness homebrew competition organized by the Lehigh Valley Homebrewers. The event was a lot of fun and I got to try some real interesting beers, especially because of the categories I judged. In the morning, I judged the Belgian Specialty Ale category, a sort of catch-all for Belgian-style ales that don't fit into one of the more specific categorizations. For example, I had some Belgian barleywines, Belgian IPAs, and oak-aged Belgian ales. In the afternoon, I judged Fruit Beers, which I was admittedly not a huge fan of--I officially hate raspberry now. I had a wheat beer brewed with kumquat, which I've never even heard of before, but from what I can tell belonged to the citrus family based on the flavor. There were two really great peach beers, an American Wheat and a Wit, which ended up being in our top three. The trick with the fruit beers is that you need to strike a balance between the base beer and the fruit. Many brewers struggle with this; the fruit needs to come through in both the aroma and flavor without overshadowing the character of the base beer. For example, some of the raspberry beers were just complete fruit bombs; there was no balance--they almost just tasted like a raspberry soda.

In addition to judging at the competition, I actually entered two of my own beers for the very first time--a Marzen (Oktoberfest) and a Weizen (aka Hefeweizen). Considering this was my first competition, I was happy with the results. I knew my Marzen was a little off style, so I was not surprised that it received a 29.5 consensus score (out of 50), which put me right at the top of the "Good" category ("misses the mark on style and/or minor flaws"). I know that sounds like a bad score, but it's not bad in the scheme of things (I haven't given above a 39 yet to a beer while judging). I was a bit disappointed with the scores on my Weizen, because I thought it was one of the best beers I've brewed yet. I got a 24 consensus score, which is still in the "Good" category, but I felt it deserved better. After reading the judges' comments though, it started to make some sense--here are some of the negative remarks:
--"No clove + banana"
--"low/med carbonation (needs more)"
--"very low aromatics overall for the style"
--"no head. fades fast!"
--"low carbonation affects other areas"
I think the last comment hit the nail on the head. I bottled the beer out of the keg a week before the competition, and although the beer was well-carbonated in the keg, I think it lost it in the bottle. Carbonation is a huge component of a beer, and if it's too low or too high, it could impact all the other components. The low carbonation made the beer seem lifeless and prevented aromatics from being lifted out of the glass. Next time I'll definitely try to bottle the morning of the competition! One thing that did make me feel better is that one judge wrote, "Not quite to style, despite pleasant drinking." So basicaly, I made a great beer, but it just didn't fit the style. That's the tough thing about competitions--with the exception of the specialty categories, it's not just about if the beer is good or not, it's about if you hit the style parameters. I had a good shot, but I missed the bulls-eye.

That's all for now! I'm heading to the Great World Beer Festival in New York City this Sunday, so I'll have details about that after the weekend. Cheers!