Pumpkin Beer Recipes

Photo by Beerutopia

This is a recipe that someone gave me a few years ago. I don't know where he got it from and I haven't tried it myself. It is worth a try for anyone that has already brewed beer form home or for anyone willing to try.

Ingredients:

* 6-10 pounds of pumpkin
* 1 pound of Vienna malt, 4L
* ½ pound crystal malt, 60L
* ½ pound malted wheat
* 6 pounds light or amber malt extract
* 1 cup brown suger (optional)
* ½ cup molasses (optional)
* 1 ounce Mt. Hood hops (boiling)
* ½ ounce Hallertauer hops (finishing)
* ½ teaspoon vanilla
* ½ to 1 teaspon pumpkin pie spices (see below)
* Wyeast 1056, American Ale

Directions:

In this recipe DO NOT use canned pumpkin! Real pumpkin is a must.

First roast the pumpkin in the oven, the same way you roast any winter squash. This will soften the pumpkin. Cut the pumpkin in half, remove the seeds and strings. Cut the pumpkin into manageable pieces. (Old jack-o'lanterns work great), Place pumpkin pieces in a shallow roasting pan and add a bit of water to the pan. Roast in a 350° oven for about an hour, or until tender. .

There's two ways you can incorporate the finished pumpkin: a partial mash-style method or simply a soak with the grains as the water heats.

For the partial mash method: Add the pumpkin and grains to hot water (between 150 and 170 degrees Fahrenheit is fine, I believe) and let rest for an hour, then bring to a boil and remove the pumpkin and grains. (Note: I don't have sparging equipment, so this removal is simply via a wire strainer.)

For the soak method: Add the pumpkin and the grains to your pot of water, put it on the heat to boil. When it boils, remove the pumpkin and grains.

Add the malt extract (6 pounds is for dry, you could easily get away with 7 pounds if it's syrup), optional brown sugar and molasses, Mt. Hood hops and boil for 1 hour. After 45 minutes, add the finishing Hallertauer hops. At the very end of the boil, add the vanilla and pumpkin spices* - these are volatile and adding them to the boil any sooner will essentially nullify their flavor.

Ferment for 1 week, or until primary fermentation settles down, and rack to a secondary for 2 more weeks. The secondary fermentation is not strictly necessary, but it helps for clarification and for letting the flavors mellow. Bottle, priming with 1/2 cup of corn sugar, and drink after a couple of weeks.

* Pumpkin Spices: I like a typical mixture of what you'd put into a pumpkin pie: cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger and a smigeon of clove. DON'T use the generic "Pumpkin Pie Spice" from the store. It is terribley bland. Mix your own instead. Your own mix will give you more control over the outcome. This spice aroma is one of the first things you notice when you open a bottle.

A quick note about the hops. Mt. Hood is a nice spicy, slightly sweet hop (a variant of Hallertauer, actually) that seems to complement this beer well. For finishing, you don't have to stick to Hallertauer; play with it a bit. Cascade might be a nice finish, or if you want to reduce the hop bite, omit the finishing hop altogether.

I found this really cool blog that shows you step-by-step how to make your Pumpkin Beer in a pumpkin.

Recipe and photo comes from Modern Domestics which she adapted it from a Williams-Sonoma recipe.

Makes one quart.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
5 egg yolks
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup canned unsweetened pumpkin puree
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup pumpkin beer

In a heavy 2 quart saucepan, combine 1 cup of cream and 1/2 cup of the brown sugar. Warm over medium heat, until small bubbles form at the edges of the mixture - around 5 minutes.

In a medium bowl, combine the egg yolks, ginger, salt, and remaining 1/2 cup cream, and the remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar. Whisk until smooth.

Remove cream mixture from heat. Very slowly add about 1/2 cup of the hot cream mixture to the egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly. Pour the egg yolk mixture into the sauce pan. Cook over medium heat until mixture thickens and coats the back of a spoon (if you run your finger through the mixture on the spoon, it should leave a clean trail). Do not let the custard boil.

In a bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or up to 8 hours. Strain through a fine mesh sieve into a medium bowl. Cool custard mixture over an ice bath.

When cool, whisk the pumpkin, vanilla, and pumpkin beer into the custard. Cover with plastic wrap, placing the plastic directly on the custard's surface (this will prevent a skin from forming). Refrigerate until chilled - preferably overnight.

Transfer the custard to an ice cream maker and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions. Makes about 1 quart.

Note:

Makes 2 loaves

Ingredients:

4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup ground flaxseed
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup melted butter
2/3 cup pumpkin beer (at room temperature)
3 large eggs
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin
Cooking spray

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, salt, and next 6 ingredients (through allspice) in a medium bowl; stir with a whisk.

3. Combine 1/2 cup water and flaxseed.

4. Place sugar, melted butter, beer and eggs in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium-high speed until well blended. Add flaxseed mixture and pumpkin; beat at low speed just until blended. Add flour mixture; beat just until combined. Divide batter between 2 (9 x 5-inch) loaf pans coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.

5. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pans. Cool completely on wire rack.

Options:

The first time I made beer biscuits was out of necessity. The necessity was we wanted some biscuits to go with our dinner, but had run out of milk, and it was too far to drive all the way into town just for a carton of milk. We had lots of beer, however, so beer biscuits were born. I decided to try making them with some left-over pumpkin beer and they turned out great. Keeping it simple, this recipe is using Bisquick, but you could just as easily use your own biscuit recipe and just substitute the beer for the milk.

All you have to do is follow the directions on the box of Bisquick, or from your favorite brand of baking mix, and just replace the milk with the pumpkin beer. The beer should be room temperature, but not flat. When you add the beer, pour it in slowly so that it doesn't foam up and make a mess.

If you have some left over pureed pumpkin on hand you could mix about 1/4 c. to 1/2 c. of pumpkin into the dough. Just remember to cut the quantity of beer for the mount of pumpkin added. So, if your recipe on the box calls for 2/3 of a cup of milk, add 1/3 cup of pumpkin and 1/3 cup of beer.

Because I have a large family, when I bake biscuits from a baking mix, I usually use 4 cups of the baking mix and 1 12-oz. bottle of pumpkin beer.

Once everything is mixed, just knead your dough enough to be able to roll or pat it out. Don't play with the dough too much or you will have tough biscuits. You could also make dropped biscuits, if you prefer, by dropping the dough into buttered muffin tins, or onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Again, just follow the directions on the box of your baking mix for the baking time, but biscuits generally will take 8 to 10 minutes to bake in an oven set at 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

Options:

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