Fall favorites, but do they blend?!?
Here in the upper Midwest the leaves are changing and mums and pumpkins are appearing in people’s yards With the advent of cooler weather and earlier nights has come the onslaught of pumpkin spice lattes (pumpkin spice EVERYTHING!!!) as well as their beer counterpart. No matter how much someone loves beer in general, when it comes to pumpkin beer, people seem to fall into one of two camps – love it or hate it. And that brings us to…
Ask the Brewer
What’s the big deal with pumpkin beers, anyways?
While pumpkin beers may seem like a relatively new phenomenon, they first entered the scene on a national level in 1995, thanks to Blue Moon Harvest Ale. Before that they were actually pretty hard to find, as fall beer releases tended to focus on Oktoberfest beers. While it took a while for this beer style to catch on, in the past 10 years, pumpkin beer sales have grown by 1500%!
That brings us to the meat of the question, “What is the deal with pumpkin beer, why do people either love it or hate it?” In pouring over multiple articles on this, it seems like the hate it camp finds it too sweet, too spicy, to have a musty after-taste, to lack pumpkin flavor, to have too much pumpkin flavor, to not being sweet enough, to not taste like beer, or have no spice whatsoever. The love it side of the equation insists that pumpkin and beer blend perfectly. That the pumpkin and spice notes combine just right with the floral and citrus of the hops to create a smooth fall beer that celebrates the season. And those pumpkin beer lovers have plenty to choose from.
Here at Burning Brothers, we take the road less traveled. Our fall release is our tart and delicious Cranberry Shandy. We start with our American Pale Ale and add cranberry juice and sugar for a festive celebration that goes from fall through the winter.
Taproom Tidings
Tap selection for the weekend includes Pyro American Pale Ale, Roasted Coffee Ale, Fused Orange Blossom Honey Ale, Parched Lime Shandy, Cranberry Shandy, Raj-Agni India Pale Ale and Raspberry Infused Pyro. For those of you who love the Parched lime, we recommend coming in and stocking up, as it will not be back on tap until next spring.
We are very excited to have Hot Indian Foods with us on Friday (10/14). They will be serving their “Paneer on a Spear”, battered with a Pyro beer batter, that they debuted at the MN State Fair. Saturday (10/15) is BYOGFF (Bring Your Own Gluten-Free Food), so make sure you ask if you need suggestions of ideas as to what to bring in to the taproom.
Final Thoughts
Our awesome brewers have been hard at work on the pilot brewing system, tweaking recipes and getting back to small batch beers for the fall and winter. If there was one that you particularly enjoyed last year at this time, drop us a note. We will move the favorites up in the taproom rotation.
As always, if you have questions, drop us a note via Email, Facebook or Twitter.
Cheers!