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So, as I related in the most recent Beer News, Bud released an ad that got some craft beer enthusiasts hot under the collar. Near the end of that ad, we’re told that hipster nancy boys can go ahead and sip their pumpkin peach ales, the real bros will be out there pounding down some golden suds (i.e. Budweiser). Of course, this immediately sent tens of thousands of homebrewers to their recipe formulation software to try to come up with a recipe for pumpkin peach ale. Here’s my stab at it.

This is a partial mash beer — in other words, it’s “brewed the easy way.” Although you can use any partial mash method, the instructions are written for countertop partial mashing. Most pumpkin beers are some variation of an amber ale, but I wanted to try something different. So, I came up with a pumpkin peach tripel. Enjoy sipping it.

Pumpkin Peach Tripel

by Chris Colby

Partial mash (the easy way), English units

DISSECTION

Since this is just an idea, not a tested beer, I wanted to outline my thoughts on how I formulated the recipe. The basic idea here is to make a Belgian-style tripel, but to accent the flavors and aroma with pumpkins and peaches. The pumpkin is mashed and the peaches are added in the secondary fermenter. A small amount of typical pumpkin pie spices are added to lightly accentuate the pumpkin.

Canned pumpkin is easy to find and already roasted, so I chose. I am assuming that canned pumpkin is roughly 80% liquid. That means 11.6 oz.of pumpkin solids and I’m guessing that you can get 35 p/p/g from the dry pumpkin weight. These are educated guesses, and I’d bet they are pretty close. Even if they’re off slightly, it won’t make a huge difference.

I used some 6-row malt in the formulation for its enzymatic power. The starches in the pumpkin need to be degraded or they will lead to hazy beer. The spice blend is a consensus blend made from comparing a lot of popular pumpkin pie recipes. The amount of spices should make a very lightly spiced ale; the idea is to have just a hint of actual spices to mingle with the ‘spicy’ aroma from the yeast. The idea was not to produce a beer spiced to the degree that the typical pumpkin amber ale is.

I’m going to assume the peach puree is around 16 °Brix. (12–20 °Brix is the norm for supermarket peaches, and 16 °Brix is the midpoint of that range.) The fruit is added in secondary to preserve its delicate aroma. You do not need to attempt to sanitize the puree. Unless the can is bulging, it should be sanitary.

I assumed 65% extract efficiency for the partial mash, which is close to what I usually get.

Both pumpkin and peaches are fairly lightly flavored. In the amounts they are used here, they should add a light flavor and aroma to the tripel. They should not produce a strongly flavored beer. The beer is also fairly highly attenuated, so there won’t be a lot of sweetness behind the peaches. With the high level of carbonation, the pumpkin, spices, and peaches should come out most prominently in the aroma, leaving the flavor to more closely resemble an ordinary tripel.

INGREDIENTS (for 5 gallons)

Malt, Malt Extract, Pumpkins, Peaches, and Sugars (for an OG of 1.075 and an SRM of 10)

2 lb. 4 oz. Vienna malt

1.0 lb. US 6-row brewers malt

58 oz. (two 29-oz. cans) Libby’s 100% (canned) Pumpkin

6.0 lb. Pilsner liquid malt extract

8.0 oz. brown sugar

1.0 lb. cane sugar

4.0 lb. peach puree (which will bring the “virtual OG” to 1.081)

Hops and Spices (24 IBU total)

German Magnum hops (24 IBU)

(0.45 oz. of 16% alpha acids, boiled for 60 minutes)

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Yeast (for an FG of 1.014 and 8.7% ABV)

White Labs WLP530 (Abbey Ale) or Wyeast 3787 (Trappist High Gravity) yeast

(2-qt. yeast starter)

PROCEDURES

Add the canned pumpkin directly to your brewpot. Stir in water until you have 5.5 qt. of pumpkin slurry. Heat the slurry to 163 °F. Place crushed grains in a nylon steeping bag and submerge in slurry. Hold temperature at 152 °F for 60 minutes, stirring frequently, and adding heat as needed. (During this time, the grains should mash and enzymes from the grains should digest the starch in the pumpkin slurry. Stir frequently.) Remove steeping bag and place in a 2-gallon beverage cooler (the kind with a spigot). Scoop or pour liquid from brewpot into cooler. Rinse brewpot. Recirculate, then collect roughly 2.5 gallons of wort. Hold collected wort at around 152 °F as you collect it (in your brewpot). Stir in roughly half of the malt extract and hold it at this temperature for 5 minutes. Add water to make 3.5 gallons of wort in your brewpot. Bring wort to a boil and boil for 60 minutes. Add hops at beginning of boil. Stir in sugars and remaining malt extract starting at 10 minutes left in the boil. Add spices for final 2 minutes of boil. Cool wort to 68 °F and transfer it to your fermenter. Add water to make 4.5 gallons and aerate thoroughly. Pitch yeast and begin fermenting at 68 °F. After high kräusen, let the fermentation temperature rise to 75 °F. When the fermentation slows down, place the peach puree in a sanitized bucket fermenter and rack the fermenting beer into it. Top up to 5 gallons with water, if needed. Let renewed fermentation occur at around 72 °F. When the secondary fermentation stops, let the beer sit for 3 days on the yeast, then rack to keg or bottles. Carbonate to 3 volumes of CO 2 . (Use heavy bottles, if bottling.)

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