I feel like this day was 4 years in the making. I have made 3 pumpkin beers in the past. All of them way below "decent" The first one was just a spiced amber ale. Lame. Second one even worse. Bottle bombs. Third one. Worse yet. Infected. So what do you have this year? A real pumpkin beer!
Every year trying to brew this beer I learned something new. I was finally able to put it all together and make a good pumpkin beer. This beer was my take on the Pocahontas Pumpkin Pie ale from last years Zymurgy issue.
It's a pumpkin beer I can drink. I don't really like pumpkin beer so this is a strong compliment. The spice levels are just right. Not overly spiced or under spiced. The malty sweetness is ok. It could be a tad sweeter to push it more into the "pie" flavors. The carbonation is a bit high. It would be great if it was smoother and lighter levels. It might bring out the sweetness a bit more.
After the past 4 years I'll consider this beer a big accomplishment. Now I can finally start to change and update the recipe to work better for my tastes. Lowering the carbonation, using a more flocculant yeast and mashing a bit higher to keep some more residual sugars for the final beer will be step one.
Let fall officially begin!
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