Welcome to the Higgins House Homebrew Section. 

During our exclusive private beer, wine and mead tastings we have a tendancy to bring out some of our very own Homebrew and home made Meads.  As a Nationally Ranked BJCP judge and intense homebrewer for 15-years, I've been known to come up with some killer recipes from Lagers to Ales.  My most favorite Holiday Recipe is the Pumpkin Ale.  I've been making this in 5-gallon batches traditionaly for 10 years and usually have plenty of it for neighbors during Halloween.  So many people loved these seasonal beer so much that I was asked to make a 99-gallon batch at a local Hops Resturante and Brewery.  The experience not only created an outstanding commercial version of my "secret" recipe, but it made a great article when I was done writing everything down.  So I decided to share this with my guests.  I hope you enjoy.

Higgins House Pumpkin Ale - Home Brew Recipe and Commercial Microbrew Recipe

The Event
The date, September 16 th, 2002; the place, Hops in Winter Park . Due to the awesome generosity of Matt Glass at the Winter Park, Florida Hops, I was able to enrich my meager homebrewing skills by helping brew my first 3.5-barrel (99 gallon) batch of beer. In keeping with my 11-year tradition of home brewing Pumpkin Ales, Matt kindly asked me to collaborate with him on creating our own micro-brewed Pumpkin Ale.

Kudos To The Originator
Up front, I feel it necessary to acknowledge the following mentors who influenced the recipe brewed at Hops. For starters, the Pumpkin Ale homebrew I made 10 years ago was based on a published recipe created by Luke Scott at Hearts Homebrew. About 11 years ago, Luke found an all grain microbrew recipe for Pumpkin Ale in a magazine. During Jury duty, he converted it to a partial mash homebrew recipe, published it in Hearts catalog, and the rest is history. Luke's recipe started my yearly quest for brewing the Ultimate Pumpkin Ale. This quest is my motivational key, driving me to create an ever-evolving recipe that, thus far, seems to improve each year I make it.

Over the years, I have also tried many micro-brewed examples of Pumpkin Ales. The most notable comes from Salem and Boston Beerworks, both located in Massachusetts .

Kudos to the Masters.

With absolutely no experience using professional equipment, such as that in Hops, I set forth seeking advice from whom I consider the Grand Master Brewer of Pumpkin Ales. Scott Houghton was the local Brewmeister for Salem Beerworks, located in Salem , Massachusetts . What better location to capitalize on a Pumpkin Ale than the home of Witches, Jack-O-Lantern's, and Pumpkin Farms? Scott and his assistant Jeremy Cross have been brewing this wonderful Pumpkin Ale in Salem for 7 years based on 11-years experience to draw from by the parent brewery, Boston Beerworks. Each year I am fortunate enough to be in the New England area during Autumn, the Boston/Salem Beerworks Pumpkin Ale never disappoints and always makes the trip worthwhile.

The Information.

Prior to even getting into brewing the beer, or learning about Hops equipment, I sort after useful information. During my multiple phone conversations with Scott and Jeremy, they changed my thinking about a number of procedures I once implemented in my homebrew Pumpkin Ale recipe. For starters, they informed me that it is not important to attempt a conversion of the starches in the pumpkin, as there isn't enough sugar derived to justify the effort. In fact, if you combine the pumpkin with the grains during steep and sparge, you are almost guaranteed to clog your equipment therefore mashing should not even be implemented. I pretty much experienced the fun with clogging my masher during 8 of the 10 years I made this ale, as I once attempated to convert the pumpkin starch during a 90 minute steep with my grains. No matter what equipment I used to sparge, it always ended up getting clogged. Little did I realize that conversion and fermentable sugars was not the point of using the pumpkin in the recipe. Secondly, the myth about having to use only "Jackal" pumpkins is just that, a myth. In fact, Scott and Jeremy told us to use ordinary canned pumpkin provided there are no preservatives. It is recommended however, to caramelize the pumpkin. This can be don e by spreading the canned pumpkin on cookie sheets as thin as possible, and backing in the oven at 350 for 1-hour until it is a dark golden color.

Since the purpose of adding pumpkin to the beer is to derive color and flavor, what better place to extract both qualities than in the boil. At first, I questioned this idea and asked if a 1-½ hour boil of pumpkin will impart a vegetable character to the beer, but I should know better then to have questioned the Masters. Based on Scott's recommendation, we introduced the 38-lbs of caramelized canned pumpkins to the wort at the very beginning of the boil. From the minute the pumpkin hit the boil, Hops Restaurant smelled like Autumn and Grandma's kitchen.

Scott also helped us better understand spicing during brewing. Initially, I was of the impression that the spices should go in last in order to infuse the maximum amount of aroma without boiling it away. Little did I realize that the procedure for adding certain spices is very similar to that followed when adding hops. Scott told us that it is indeed possible to obtain some desirable bitterness from cinnamon thus making it worthwhile to add at the beginning of the boil. He informed us that it is also possible to extract desirable flavors and aromas from the cinnamon and nutmeg by following the same timelines as that followed when adding hops. Scott's lasting comments were when he said, "just be careful and have fun with it." Although I can take that many ways, it made me think of, "relax, don 't worry, have a homebrew."

With our newfound spice information, Matt Glass and I decided to introduce a 90-minute spice addition (for bittering), a 20-minute spice addition (for flavor), and a two-minute spice addition (for aroma). Each step of the way, the spices ware carefully combined to an exacting amount along with three varieties of hops for added complexity.

The Recipe

I realize that no one will continue reading this article unless I show the recipe, so here it is. Keep in mind it is for 99-gallons. You all-grainer's will have an easier time converting this than the partial-mashers.

Grains
•  150-lbs 6 row malt

•  12.5-lbs carapils

•  25-lbs Munich

•  40-lbs Ashburn mild

•  2.25-lbs dark chocolate (450 Lovibond)

•  38-lbs canned pumpkin (caramelized in the oven at 350 for over 1 hour)

Hops

•  2-oz Chinook at 90-minutes left (beginning of boil)

•  3-oz Willamette and 3-oz Cascade at 20-minutes left

•  6-oz Cascade at 2-minute left

Spices
•  1-1/2-oz Cinnamon and ½-oz Nutmeg at 90-minutes

•  3-oz Cinnamon and 1-oz Nutmeg at 20-minute

•  3-oz Cinnamon, 1.5-oz Nutmeg and 1.5-oz crushed Coriander at 2-minute

Now to the Brewing
Well, thanks to Matt Glass and Hops generosity, you can see only the finest ingredients were at our disposal and placed into this brew. Matt and I combined our ideas and created what we hope to be, the best damn Pumpkin Ale this far south of the Mason Dixon . BASICALLY (inside joke for Matt), I informed Matt about how I create the homebrew batches, suggested what we should shoot for in this batch, and Matt processed the information, provided the necessary feedback and scaled the recipe for the 99-gallon batch size. We worked together as a perfect team (right Matt?). See Figure 1.

Continue to Page 2