Beer, Beer and More Beer had a special on their Thanksgiving and Christmas Ale kits recently, so I scooped up one of each. I had intended on brewing the Thanksgiving Ale at the November brew-in for the Delta Brewing Club, but it got cancelled on account of weather. I made the best of the situation and decided to brew anyway.

The Thanksgiving Ale kit came with a couple of packets of spices labeled “pumpkin”. I’m guessing this is the standard pumpkin pie blend you’d find in the baking section of your local grocery - some nutmeg, allspice, cinnamon, etc. - but I’m not sure. What I did know for sure was there was no actual pumpkin in this recipe. Since I now had some extra time and access to my oven on brew day, I took a trip to the super market and bought about 6 lbs of fresh sugar pumpkin. I scooped out the innards (and made baked pumpkin seeds - yum!), cubed the flesh and roasted it in the broiler for about 10-15 minutes to get it soft and sort of caramelized. I then took the pumpkin, put it in a grain bag and let it steep at about 150 degrees along with my steeping grains in the vain hope that I;d get something resembling a mini mash. In all honesty, I don’t think the specialty grains I used had enough enzymes to really do the trick. I then followed the kit instructions the rest of the way.

This is the first beer I’ve put into my new kegging kit. It’s… interesting. I’m afraid I may have gotten some kind of brett infection as it’s a shade on the sour side, but it smells and looks just fine. It’s also the first beer I created using a yeast starter, based on directions from Jamil’s site, which may have been the source of such an infection (though I thought my sanitation was solid). I’m still planning on serving it at our Christmas party. Let’s see what the guests think.

Thanksgiving Pumpkin Ale

6 lbs fresh sugar pumpkin, cubed and roasted for about 10-15 min.
12 oz 40L Crystal malt
8 oz CaraVienne malt
2 oz Chocolate malt

1 oz Hallertauer hops (60 min.)
1 oz Cascade hops (1 min.)

2 tsp “pumpkin spice” (2 min.)

California Ale Yeast (White Labs WLP001)

Steep the cubed and roasted pumpkin along with your steeping grains at about 150 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove both the grains and pumpkin, add your extract and begin the boil as normal. I racked the beer to a secondary for about 10 days, but it still experienced a bit of a haze.