"PumpkinAle" news and stories

Photo: Joshua M. Bernstein.

Joshua M. Bernstein, Gourmet.com's beer columnist, has written about brews, bars and booze for New York Magazine, Time Out New York, ForbesTraveler.com and the New York Times.

When fall hits, kids get giddy about the mother lode of Halloween candy to come. But adults, too, have reason to celebrate the harvest season -- namely, pumpkin beers.

These vegetable-influenced ales are as varied as jack-o'-lantern carvings. They range from Cape Ann's smooth and chocolaty Fisherman's Pumpkin Stout to Dogfish Head's Punkin Ale, a rich ale dosed with brown sugar and pumpkin flesh. But our favorite Halloween sipper hails from Lakewood, N.Y. -- Southern Tier.

Since the western New York brewery's humble 2004 beginnings, it has spread across the country like kudzu, reaching more than 20 states. The rapid success is due to burly brews like the ludicrously hopped Unearthly Imperial IPA (11 percent ABV!), the dessert-like Crème Brûlee Imperial Milk Stout and the Pumking.

Pumpkin ale is big this time of year. A good friend of mine, Bill Owens is credited with re-creating it in 1985/6, after 200 years of neglect, with his Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale. Now you see pumpkin ale all over, whether it is Buffalo Bill's, or the dozens of copy cat brews. Here's a great round-up of pumpkin ale by the folks at BeerAdvocate.com.

I was thinking a bit on pumpkin ale and my mind started to wander . (It usually does, sometimes for the good and sometimes not.) I started to think of a cool re-make of the classic Charlie Brown. "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!" Here are some quotes from the new classic Charlie Brown Halloween animated movie, "It's the Great Pumpkin Ale Charlie Brown!"

Lucy Van Pelt: Bleach! My lips touched dog lips! Bleagh! Poison lips! Bleagh! Pass me a pumpkin ale, quick!

[Lucy scoops out the innards of the pumpkin Linus brought to make ale from]
Linus: [groans] You didn't tell me you were gonna kill it!

Sally Brown: Is Linus going to tricks-or-treats?
Lucy Van Pelt: That blockhead of a brother of mine is over at the pumpkin ale patch making his yearly fool of himself. He sits there all night scarfin' down last years pumpkin ale, and talking to himself, asking "Where's this years Great Pumpkin Ale?"