Specialty Beers: Pumpkin

Pumpkin beers were brewed regularly by colonial American brewers, who had little or no barley malt to use in beer. Pumpkins supplied sugar necessary for fermentation. Barley was scarce during those days, but pumpkins and other squash varieties were common and were often used as a fermentable. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both brewed beer with pumpkins.

It is likely that dark “pumpkin porter” beers were very common. Sometimes we know very little about the actual look and flavor of beers in history, because the ingredients have changed or methods of preparing those ingredients have changed, but most beer prior to the Industrial Revolution was probably dark in color.

In colonial times, the malt drying process was very in-exact and almost all dried malt was either blackened or took on a very smoky quality from the crude drying ovens of the day. Only the widespread use of “coke” ovens during and after the Industrial Revolution allowed relatively smoke free malt drying at very controlled temperatures.

Food Pairings

Pumpkin beers are great with holiday dinners and pair nicely with turkey and chicken.