Pumpkin Meets Milkshake
Combining two divisive styles into one fantastic|horrible fall brew.
There are scores of brewers surely rolling their eyes at the title of this blog post, likely already on their way to closing the browser tab. Similar to pineapple on pizza—or even the kids-in-breweries debate—the craft beer and brewing community has long been split on whether pumpkin beers are worth a damn. Some brewing purists feel pumpkin simply doesn’t belong in beer. Others believe pumpkin beers just taste awful. And to add fuel to the fire, although a pumpkin beer is ideally enjoyed in the fall months (October–November, in my opinion), commercial breweries often release them in the middle of summer. Running across this fall style on your 4th of July beer run can be off-putting.
Slamming a delicious, homebrewed pumpkin beer you’re proud of while you gut your pumpkin the night before Halloween…is a vibe.
And then there are milkshake IPAs. I’d be willing to bet those who are annoyed by pumpkin beers are also annoyed by milkshake IPAs.
If you’re in your early 20s, you’re probably thinking, What the heck is a milkshake IPA? But for those of us who’ve been around for a while, you might remember them as a brief fad around 2015. And for my longtime friends and followers, you’ll recall I had 15 minutes of fame tied to milkshake IPAs (to be elaborated on in a future blog post).
A milkshake IPA is essentially a hazy IPA that, with the additions of lactose (an unfermentable milk sugar), vanilla bean, and usually some kind of fruit, gives the impression of a fruited milkshake. These beers are already fluffy in body thanks to wheat- and oat-heavy grain bills. Vanilla bean is the ultimate flavor enhancer, and along with lactose—which adds back sweetness that fermentation tends to strip from fruit—it combines to create a fruity, sweet, thick dessert-like drinking experience. The first milkshake IPA I ever tried was a strawberry version brewed by Tired Hands in Philly. Soon after, I created my own batch, and over the years I’ve brewed variants with mango, coconut, peach, blueberry, and others.
For years, nearly every pumpkin beer I tried—commercial or homebrewed—tasted mainly of pumpkin spice (which is a combinaton of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger). Some had a little sweetness, some too much, but most left me craving more body, sweetness, and overall dessert character. Almost every pumpkin beer claims to be “pumpkin pie in a glass,” but to me, many miss the mark.
So for this beer, knowing the milkshake trick can dessert-ify a beer in a jiffy, I decided to combine the two concepts. My approach was to:
Use the base grain bill from one of my milkshake IPA recipes
Add specialty grains for color and fall/graham-cracker-crust flavors
Use pumpkin flesh and pumpkin pie spice instead of fruit
Deploy the milkshake IPA standards—lactose and vanilla bean—to fill out the body, sweetness, and dessert essence
It works.
If you’re a fan of pumpkin beers, pumpkin pie, milkshake IPAs, or any combination, you’ll want to give this a try.
If you hate all of the above, well, thanks for reading this far. Before you go, here are some additional pumpkin brewing ideas that will make you even more furious:
Some have been known to use a pumpkin as a fermenter.
Some have been known to use a pumpkin as a keg.
Some have been known to use a pumpkin as a mash tun.
(Side note: the last one above, IMO is the most legitimate of the three. I’ve tasted a beer from homebrewer Robby Narquis, aka @chainsawbrewing on IG, that used a pumpkin as a mash tun, and it was amazing.)
For the pumpkin, you’ll want to use it in the mash. It gives the beer some color, and the starches convert to fermentable sugars. But honestly, using actual pumpkin in this recipe is mostly for bragging rights—it’s not strictly necessary. It always tickles me when people say, “I can’t taste the pumpkin.” Well, what does pumpkin taste like? I’ve eaten a spoonful of raw pumpkin straight from the can, and it doesn’t taste like much of anything. It’s a little mealy and earthy, I suppose, which can come through faintly in the final beer—similar to pumpkin pie. But I digress.
All that said, I like to use canned pumpkin for simplicity, since the flavor and fermentable contribution are minimal. Alternatively, you could slice up a couple of sugar pumpkins (don’t use carving pumpkins), roast them in the oven with brown sugar for caramelized flavors, and toss them into the mash.