The Ultimate Fall Treat
Beer on the Vine
Pumpkin turns up in everything this time of year — and truthfully, some of the items are a bit weird.
Air fresheners. Coffee. Hand soaps. Cheerios. Not in the category of weird (at least in my book): beer.
My favorite beer store started stocking pumpkin ales at the end of summer. Please don’t judge, but it never occurred to me that they used real pumpkins. I thought they used pumpkin-ish spices like cinnamon and ginger and moved on to their next beer, letting the consumer’s imagination take it from there. Not true.
Great Lakes Brewing Company last year harvested somewhere in the range of 200 to 250 pumpkins grown organically at their Pint Size Farm. Located half an hour from the brewery on a historic farm in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Pint Size Farm’s half-acre plot produces pumpkins using traditional farming methods.
The completely organic, pesticide-free and artificial fertilizer-free produce is used seasonally in their brewpub for their Pumpkin Ale. Last year they also brewed a small batch Specter Detector, an experimental Belgian white ale using roasted white pumpkins.
Sure beats breakfast cereal.
