|
The First Pumpkin Beer Display Is Taking Shape |
Now among the best selling seasonal beers, Pumpkin ales are not a recent invention; they date from the early colonial period. The arriving colonists found a shortage of quality malt and an abundance of a strange meaty orange gourd (the pumpkin is native to North America). In the 16th century, beer was a common drink for all day (tea and coffee had not yet spread into common use and water was often polluted) so the shortage was of great concern.
|
The 4 Pumpkins |
Instead of malt, the first pumpkin beers used the meat for all the fermentable sugars, it even appeared in one of the first American folk songs:
If barley be wanting to make into malt
We must be contented and think it no fault
For we can make liquor, to sweeten our lips,
Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.
Pumpkin beers were a staple into the 18th century, with
the most commonly cited recipe dating from 1771.
|
Pumking From Southern Tier |
As time passed, malt became more readily available and pumpkins came to be viewed as rustic so pumpkin beers all but disappeared from the American beer landscape. In the late 1980's Buffalo Bill's Brewery in California resurrected the pumpkin ale.
Contemporary pumpkin ales differ from their historical counterparts by often boasting a flavor profile more "pumpkin pie" than "pumpkin." At the co-op we are pleased to offer a selection of the best pumpkin beers from around the country.