Pumpkin Ale

If it's not on tap its fermenting. Absolutely one of my favorites.Year round, brewed 10 batches of this beer. Fresh pumpkin works best, but its not available year round so canned works fine - just has a lot of waste. Waste is about one gallon per batch. Very close to Post Roads Pumpkin Ale

We used canned (about 40 oz.) pumpkin and the results were killer. I agree with the first reviewer that there was a lot of waste with the canned pumpkin. If I can't use fresh pumpkin next time, I will increase the canned from 40 to 55 oz. Aging this beer added to the taste. I will brew this again!

This was my first batch, and it was so good. Went through 2.5 gallons in 1 night. used an extra can of pumpkin puree. might try to roast it next time.

I have had most every one of my brews turn out far superior to off the shelf beers, even from delicatessen stores; this beer however, has left me a wanting. Don't get me wrong, it's a very drinkable beer but it just didn't have that outstanding home brewed flavor. It was a lighter in body, and lacking in flavor for my expectations. If you're a die hard for pumpkin beer you won't be disappointed, but if not I am gonna say try another.

I brewed this recipe to the letter even adding more than 30 oz. of canned pumkin and I am disappointed with the flavor.It would take at least 3 times the included spice and more pumkin to achieve a real "pumkin beer" flavor and aroma in my opinion. It is a good beer and very drinkable but the pumpkin and spice are hidden completely.If you do purchase this kit I would HIGHLY recommend using at least 3 times the amount of spice and possibly adding the pumpkin much earlier in the boil.

Brewed this last October for a holiday brew. Found a couple lost bottles hidden away a couple of weeks ago. Wow....it was good in the beginning but absolutely fabulous after 9 months. I will definitely brew this again, and "lose" a couple cases this time.

This is the first pumpkin ale I have done and I was very pleased. It went a lot quicker than I anticipated so I had to brew another batch last night. The first batch I added a smidge more cinnamon and nutmeg and other than that I went by the instructions. I boiled it a little high and I boiled the pumpkin and spices a little longer than the recommended times but for my second batch I did it by the book and the only change I made was to add mulling spices. So we'll see how it turns out. This is a great kit and very easy to make. I've enjoyed it very much.

I had a package of frozen pumpkin I had prepared from the farmer's mkt from last fall to use up, so I brewed this in August. Once it carbonated, we drank it up FAST! It is best to let it sit at least 3 weeks in the bottle. Yum. I'm going to buy another kit to make this again. NOT sweet or syrupy like commercial pumpkin ales. The spice was subtle.

I'm sitting here, on 10/11/10, drinking a batch of Pumpkin Ale that I just kegged three days ago, and one I bottled last November (almost a year). Here's the summary..
Last year, I followed the recipe to the letter. It said to use 15oz of canned pumpkin, but if we wanted a more pumpkiny taste, to do 30oz. We did 30oz. This beer turned out VERY good. It disappeared very fast (too fast...) as it was delicious. However, it was NOT the pumpkin spice beer that we thought it would be, hoping to duplicate some of the pumpkin spice beers found in stores during the fall. It has now aged almost a year, and it very good.
This year, we wanted to really make that pumpkin spice beer we wanted last year. We changed the recipe some to get the results we wanted, and it turned out great! Don't use 15oz of canned pumpkin...nor 30oz.... We used 60oz of not just canned pumpkin, but of Libby's pumpkin pie filling... it's canned pumpkin with extra spices. We brewed everything else the same as the instructions called for, but we also added 2oz of cider spices (mulling spices) to the first and second fermentation. We put them in the muslin bag that comes with the kit, and just let them soak... kind of like dry hopping...
If you want a beer with a LITTLE pumpkin taste, the Pumpkin Ale was great. BUT, I would create a new kit called Pumpkin Spice or Pumpkin Pie Ale, and use these extra steps. We got the taste that we were going for, and it's great! We kegged half the batch for now, and bottled half to store away and age.

A couple things worth noting... you MUST have two fermentations...there's so much sludge you need to get the beer out of there. Also, we use a grease splash screen when transferring to help filter it. Works great.

Cheers!

This is my 3rd batch of homebrew, and I was a little disappointed with the pumpkin beer flavor in the end product. It still has an ok flavor but nothing resembling a pumpkin beer.