Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
In any case, pumpkins were originally used in brewing not for their flavor, but because they were plentiful and contain a lot of fermentable sugars. According to the Oxford Companion to Beer, pumpkin ale was invented in the 18th century by English colonists who used pumpkin juice as a substitute for cereal malts (which made it more of a wine than a beer). Modern recipes include malt, and while some use pumpkin juice, others incorporate raw or roasted pumpkin or canned pumpkin puree. Virtually all of them are made with spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves, which contribute flavors we associate with pumpkin—or at least pumpkin pie.
- Julia Thiel
I’ve always thought of pumpkin beers as oversweetened, so I was surprised that almost none of the ones I tasted were. (I should note that this is by no means a comprehensive tasting; there are at least a couple dozen pumpkin beers available in Chicago, and I didn’t attempt to track them all down.) The ones I liked least were thin and weak-tasting, with little flavor; my favorites were also the sweetest, but none of them were cloying. Below is a list of what I tried, in order from least favorite to favorite, with brief notes on each.
Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale: This is another one where I think that my preference may differ from the average drinker’s. All I could taste was clove, with a faint bitter aftertaste—and I don’t like clove. But my two friends both liked this one, and I usually love beers from Smuttynose, so I’m guessing this is a good beer that wasn’t to my taste.
Julia Thiel writes about booze every Wednesday.
