Old School Pumpkin Beer

Being early fall, pumpkin beers are on a lot of beer-drinkers’ minds & palates lately.  The House just got a “second wave” of pumpkin ales in this past week, including some perennial favorites (Southern Tier Pumking, Dogfish Head Punk’n, Weyerbacher Imperial Pumpkin) along with a few newcomers (Elysian The Great Pumpkin, Evil Genius’s varieties).  Even the more “softcore” among us gravitate to the rich, spicy, warming flavors, which are really more evocative of pumpkin pie & the spices used than actual pumpkin: nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, vanilla, ginger.  Locals East End even brewed a beer last year that openly embraced that irony, brewed with all the seasonings & no pumpkin, & named “Nunkin” to reflect that assertion.

Pumpkin ale wasn’t always this way, a spicy, sweet, cozy beer.  18^th century colonists in America used pumpkins as a pure source of starch & sugars (of which there are plenty) in their beer, taking the gourd as a substitute for barley when supplies were low.  Flipping through The Oxford Companion to Beer (thanks once again to eternal source Garrett Oliver), I came across an old recipe for pumpkin ale – from 1771, to be exact – that made no mention of malts at all.  It’s full of old timey English, which referred to pumpkins as “pompions”:

RECEIPT FOR POMPION ALE

Let the Pompion be beaten in a Trough and pressed as Apples.  The expressed Juice is to be boiled in a Copper a considerable Time and carefully skimmed that there may be no Remains of the fibrous Part of the Pulp.  After that Intention is answered let the Liquor be hopped cooled fermented &c. as Malt Beer.

This “ale” is essentially pumpkin juice, fermented & hopped, closer to a cider than a beer.  One wonders how this kind of drink would stand up nowadays, served alongside the modern, evolved form of pumpkin ale.  It would be interesting, no doubt, but probably something worth a few sips, a few “hmm”s, & then headed for the dump bucket.  As fun an experiment as this trip to the past would be, I’m sure folks are happy that pumpkin ale is where it is today. 

In honor of 21^st century pumpkin beer, we’ll be tapping no less than seven on Oct. 27^th for our Halloween party, some of which will be brand new to the House.  In addition, there’ll be other festivities, like prize giveaways & a costume contest.  So come join us for an old school good time while celebrating the new!