Pumpkin Cinnamon Spice Brown Ale

Okay ladies and gents it's been a while since I have posted because I am back to brewing! It being fall I decided that I needed a beer that represented everything I love about this season. So I took cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice in order to replicate the smell and taste of pumpkin pie. Then I thought, "well if I am going to replicate the taste of pumpkin pie then I need a freak-in pumpkin"! So I added two pounds of pumpkin right into the mash, I know what your thinking "What crazy Jack o'lantern brewer would put two pounds of a gourd into a beer"? I will tell you which one this guy!  Then at the boil when it came down to putting in the spices I thought "why add only one cinnamon stick when I could add TWO WHOLE STICKS!  The end result was a complex autumn beer with a slight pumpkin profile, a strong cinnamon bite, settling out with a hint of nutmeg and a dry hop finish. The is honestly the most complex tasting beer I have ever brewed and couldn't be happier with it. You can't have a sip of it with out thinking of the changing colors in the trees or the crisp autumn air. Here is the recipe below brew and enjoy:
10lbs 2 row brewers malt
.5 lbs malted barley
.5 lbs American Vienna
.2 lbs candi sugar dark
2 lbs pumpkin
2 oz pumpkin spice mix
1 oz East Kent Goldings (.5 oz 60min, .5 oz 30 min)
1 oz Fuggle
Original Gravity 1.052
Final Gravity 1.010

Next week I will be brewing an Oatmeal Chocolate Peanut Butter Stout, this beer will be my winter beer and getting the peanut butter in there will be a challenge for sure!

Happy Brewing

Oregon Organic Brewers Fest, A Mouthful to Say The Least

 Beer festivals in my book are usually one the biggest let downs I have all summer. Oh sure it sounds like a great idea: get as many brewers together as possible to make some extraordinary specialty beers and get people interested in the microbrewery movement. In theory that is a great idea unfortunately, what usually happens is a mob of drunken patrons swarming the beer tents like... well like a drunken mob. The beer runs out fast and the lines are so long you are forced into an endless circle of ordering your beer then immediately going back in line. While you are circling about the smell of all those people hits your nose like a mallet hitting a sealed can of rancid dog food. So usually I try to avoid the big water front beer festival in downtown Portland.