Feathertop Pumpkin Ale Tasting

Slowly catching up.  I brewed this pumpkin beer back in September and drank most of it in October and November.  It has aged well, though I feel it was crisper when it was younger.

Feathertop (2.0)

Appearance - A perfect orange-copper for a pumpkin beer; thick off-white head that dissipates quickly.  No lacing.

Aroma - Malty and sweet-smelling (floral) with a nice mix of cinnamon/ginger/nutmeg - no one spice stands out and the whole thing is a rather complex, alluring aroma.

Flavor - Mostly rich malt with general spicy notes.   Hard to tell what is coming from the spices and what is coming from the hops, which is a good thing I think - it probably means I didn't overdo the spice additions. You can definitely tell they're there, but they are not overpowering. I think using small amounts of several spices helps give this beer good flavor complexity without hitting you over the head with any particular spice flavor. Some residual sweetness there as well.  The overall malt profile reminds me of Jenlain Ambrée , the only true bière de garde I have had. Based on what little I know of this style, I imagine I could consider this beer a spiced bière de garde. I suppose the similarity could also be because of the French Ale yeast I used - I have no other experience using this strain so I can't compare it to anything else. There is also a flavor in there that I suppose is the pumpkin, but I don't really don't know if it is just the fact that I know there is real pumpkin in there.

Mouthfeel - Moderately low carbonation and a relatively thick finish gives this beer a creaminess that is nice with the malt and spices. Definitely not dry. I wonder if the raw pumpkin adds to the thickness. Certainly a beer more for the Fall or Winter (as it was intended).

Overall - This is a really nice pumpkin beer with a lot of complexity. It would be tough to drink more than one or two of these (for me anyway) given its intense maltiness and thick mouthfeel. However, I think the malt really needs to be there to help moderate the spice additions - if this were less malty or finished too dry I think the spices would become too harsh.

Pumpkin Beer

A couple of years ago I brewed up a really nice pumpkin beer and thought it was about time to try it again.  I even planned way ahead and planted a sugar pumpkin plant in my home garden for the sole intention of using the pumpkins in a beer.  Unfortunately, the plant had some serious issues and I didn't get a single fruit from its vine (in fact, all my squash/cukes/melon plants had issues this year).  So, I went with Plan B and picked up a couple of small pumpkins at a local farm/orchard.

There are a multitude of methods out there for brewing a pumpkin beer - from using a canned puree to baking whole pumpkins in the oven with brown sugar to skipping the pumpkin altogether and just using the requisite pumpkin pie spices.  I didn't like any of those options.  I wanted to use fresh pumpkin, but didn't want to deal with the extra steps of baking it (and the mess and probable stuck sparge that goes along with it).  I did a little research and discovered that the gelatinization temperature for pumpkins falls within the normal mash temperatures.  So, I figured if there's any starch that needs to be converted, it can just happen right there in the mash (though it turns out, as far as I can tell, there's not a lot to convert).

I cut the tops of the pumpkins, scooped out the seeds and stringy pulp, and chopped them up into chunks (rind and all).  I then processed the chunks with my cuisinart with the handy-dandy grater attachement.  The resulting pumpkin "hash" was mixed right into the mash.  After an hour, full conversion was confirmed with an iodine test and I proceeded to sparge as normal with no problems.  The brew process went without a hitch.  I decided to use a combination of EKG and Challenger hops since I have found recently that I really like the beers I've made that use more than a single hop variety - there just seems to be an added dimension to these batches.  I also added a judicious amount of spices (again, using a combination to give the final beer more complexity).  Most pumpkin beer recipes I see out there tend to only add hops for bittering, letting the spices predominate the flavor and aroma, but I like the way English hops meld with the spices, so I opted to add some late hops.

For the yeast, I decided to try something different and went with WLP072 French Ale (Platinum Release)...mostly because I had it already in my fridge after picking it up on a whim earlier in the summer, but also because I figured its malt-forward characteristics would work well in a beer like this.  I pitched a 1 liter starter and fermentation took off.  I currently have it in my "mudroom" (for lack of a better term) where the ambient temp is ~64°F.  I hope to have a few bottles ready for a pumpkin-carving party in October, but I imagine it won't really hit its peak until at least Halloween.

Feathertop 2.0
brewed on 9/19/12 (and into the morning hours of 9/20/12)

Recipe Specifications 
Batch Size: 4.00 gal

Estimated Color: 11.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 29.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 69.00 %
OG: 1.048
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.7%

Grist
5 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter - 52.6 %
1 lbs Caramunich I - 10.5 %
8.0 oz Melanoidin Malt - 5.3 %
8.0 oz Vienna Malt - 5.3 %
8.0 oz Wheat Malt - 5.3 %
2 lbs Pumpkin, fresh, raw, grated - 21.1 %

Hops
10 g Challenger [7.20 %] - 60.0 min
10 g Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] - 60.0 min
4 g Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] - 15.0 min
4 g Challenger [7.20 %] - 15.0 min
4 g Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] - 1.0 min
4 g Challenger [7.20 %] - 1.0 min

Spices (all added in last minute of the boil)
0.50 tsp Cinnamon, ground
0.50 tsp Nutmeg, ground
0.25 tsp Ginger, ground
0.25 tsp Allspice, ground
0.13 tsp Cloves, ground

Yeast
French Ale (White Labs #WLP072)

 Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 150°F, batch sparge

Feathertop Pumpkin Ale (Redux)

Generally, I'm not a huge pumpkin beer fan, but I wanted to try my hand at brewing one this past fall. I did a fair amount of research on this, finding inspiration and insights from here and here, which helped me craft my own variation of this style. I envisioned Colonial New England, crisp fall weather, and changing leaves. I wanted something that was not too heavy and certainly not too spice-laden. I also wanted something with a nice orange color. As is my wont, I eschewed the conventional advice of only using hops for bittering and went ahead with some late additions thinking (accurately IMHO) that the EKG would compliment the pumpkin and the spices.

For the pumpkins, I used 2lbs of pie pumpkins generously donated from the Roger Williams University student organic garden. I did not precook the pumpkins. Instead, I scooped out the innards and cut the pumpkins into chunks and sent them through my Cuisinart with the grater attachment (skin and all). I then combined the grated raw pumpkin with the rest of the grist in the mash.

This was the first attempt at using my new 5-gallon MLT, which I decided to build because of this recipe. I was hoping this would be my first all-grain batch (no sparge, 3.5 gallons), but I missed just about every number possible. I was low on my mash temp so I added some boiling water, but only managed to raise it a couple of degrees. My efficiency sucked, even for no sparge, so I ended up using a pound of extract to make up the difference.

To top it all off, even though I made a starter, my initial pitch of yeast never took off, so after 72 hours of no fermentation I repitched with a packet of dry yeast. Fermentation took off after that.

Even with all the issues, in the end, I think this turned out to be a really good beer. I hit the color dead on and it has a nice solid spicy-ness to it without being too much. Good body. Very tasty.

(the name is based on Nathaniel Hawthorn's short story, Feathertop)

Feathertop Pumpkin Ale
Brewed on 9/6/10

Recipe Specifications
All Grain, No Sparge, Partial Boil
Batch Size: 3.50 gal
Boil Size: 2.56 gal
Estimated Color: 13.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 28.7 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 34.00 % (?!?!?!?!?!?!?)
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
OG: 1.052
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.21%

Grist
5 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter - 47.62 %
2 lbs Pumpkin, fresh, raw, grated - 19.05 %
1 lbs Caramunich I - 9.52 %
8.0 oz Melanoidin - 4.76 %
8.0 oz Vienna Malt - 4.76 %
8.0 oz Wheat Malt, Pale - 4.76 %
1 lbs Extra Light DME - 9.52 %

Hops
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] (60 min)
0.25 oz Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] (15 min)
0.25 oz Goldings, East Kent [4.50 %] (1 min)

Spices
0.50 tsp Cinnamon, ground (Boil 1.0 min)
0.50 tsp Nutmeg, grated (Boil 1.0 min)
0.25 tsp Allspice, ground (Boil 1.0 min)
0.25 tsp Ginger, ground (Boil 1.0 min)
0.125 tsp Cloves, Ground (Boil 1.0 min)

Yeast
SafAle US-05
(original yeast WLP001 never took off, so repitched with the SafAle)

Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 149F, No Mash Out, No Sparge