How to Brew Pumpkin Beer in a Pumpkin, in 20 Easy Steps

Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater, had a wife and couldn’t keep her. Put her in a pumpkin shell, and there he kept her very well. Nice story of “green” (or orange) sustainable housing. But if Peter was a brewer, he could have used the pumpkin to brew his ale in. Or he could have made pumpkin ale soup, or pumpkin brandy, or brandied pumpkin pie, or pumpkin wine, or even pumpkin liquor from the meat and guts of the pumpkin. Then he could have kept his wife well imbibed while he made a barrel of money. The truth is, if one wants to get as smashed as a pumpkin after midnight on Halloween, there are many creative ways to do it. There are a lot of leftover pumpkins and pieces after Halloween night, and the human animal has long made moonshine out of everything and anything at hand.

Since we live only to bring you stories of reuse and waste to resources here at Greenopolis, we considered it our civic duty to search the field - the pumpkin field, that is, and find as many fun creative and intoxicating things to do with left over pumpkins as we could. After you’ve read our blog and followed the recipes here, you can sit there next to your big old pumpkin with the straw sticking out of it, sipping and grinning at all the little trick or treating children as they traipse over your lawn, tearing up the grass and flowers you worked all year to get just right. But no worries! You have your pumpkin mash to keep you comfortable and happy. Very comfortable and very happy.

With these recipes below, you can turn into a pumpkin at midnight or anytime you like.

Let’s start with pumpkin brew and then move on to harder stuff!

If you want to try your hand at brewing your own pumpkin ale, we found a couple of places to start. The first was from our friends (even though I can’t remember their names after last night) at Beerutopia.com

Their recipe for pumpkin beer uses, grain, hops, yeast and of course, pumpkin. After brewing, save the leftover pumpkin for pies. They got 5 gallons of pumpkin beer and 3 pumpkin pies out of an 8 pound pumpkin for $2. For a fascinating pictorial essay on making pumpkin beer, brewed right in the pumpkin, check out this recipe at Sloshspot.com:

How to Brew Pumpkin Beer in a Pumpkin, in 20 Easy Steps. The recipe includes running hot barley and water through the pumpkin, and fermenting it another one.

Picture this back in college:

I can see my friends on their backs, mouths open right under this spigot.

The initial mixture is transferred into this pumpkin for fermenting:

This pumpkin is full of enough brewing beer to put you out of your gourd! Where’s the pretzels?

If beer is too lowbrow for you, how about pumpkin wine? 2009 is a great year for pumpkins. Actually every year is good for pumpkins, the orange things grow everywhere.

Try adding maple syrup instead of sugar for a richer taste. The recipe below is courtesy of Roxanne’s Kitchen.

Pumpkin wine ingredients:

- 8 cups pumpkin
- 5 cups sugar
- 1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
- 3 teaspoon acid blend
- 1 campden tablet
- 1 pound raisins
- 1 package wine yeast
- 1 gallon boiling water

Wash, trim, peel and chop (or grind) the pumpkin. Place in primary fermentor. Add raisins and boiling water. Let sit overnight.

Add all other ingredients except yeast. Stir well to dissolve sugar. Specific gravity should be between 1.090 and 1.095. Sprinkle yeast over the mixture and stir. Stir daily for three to five days, until specific gravity is 1.040.

Strain the must and squeeze out as much juice as you can. Siphon into secondary fermentor, make up to volume with water and attach airlock.

For a dry wine, rack in three weeks, and every three months for one year. Bottle.

For a sweet wine, rack at three weeks. Add 1/2 cup sugar dissolved in 1 cup wine. Stir gently, and place back into secondary fermentor. Repeat process every six weeks until fermentation does not restart with the addition of sugar. Rack every three months until one year old. Bottle  it up. The wine is best if you can refrain from drinking it for one full year from the date it was started. Good luck.

For a spiced wine, add pumpkin pie spices. Add spice to the pumpkin before adding the boiling water. Try brown sugar (or maple syrup!) in place of the granulated sugar.

Hungry after all that brewing and fermenting? Try Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale Soup:

- Serves 6-8
- 2 leeks, sliced
- 2 celery stalks, chopped
- 5 cloves garlic, smashed
- 1 bunch thyme, chopped
- 8 pounds pumpkin, seeded, then roasted, use the pulp only
- 4 cups chicken stock
- 12 ounces pumpkin ale (see recipe above)
- 1 Tbsp. each of allspice, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon
- Roast pumpkin and set aside to cool. Sauté leeks, garlic, carrots and celery until soft. Add the dry spices and the beer. Reduce by half. Add the pumpkin pulp and cover with chicken stock. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 20 minutes. Carefully, puree in a blender. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Garnish with popcorn.

Well, that made me thirsty! Let’s get back to beverages. If you are craving harder stuff try one of these recipes:

Photo Credit : Grey Goose Vodka

Pumpkin Martini

• 1/2 oz Sylk Cream Liqueur
• 2 oz vanilla vodka
• 1/2 oz pumpkin liqueur or pumpkin spice syrup
• 1 tsp whipped cream
• cinnamon stick for garnish

Preparation:

1. Pour the Sylk Liqueur and vodka into a shaker filled with ice.
2. Shake well.
3. Add the pumpkin liqueur or syrup.
4. Shake again.
5. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
6. Top with a teaspoon of whipped cream.
7. Garnish with a cinnamon stick.

Pumpkin Liqueur Recipe (courtesy CDKitchen)

- 24 ounces Pumpkin
- 1 lemon, Juice and rind
- 25 ounces Rum
- 6 ounces Sugar for each 16 oz of juice
- Cut pumpkin into small pieces, add the juice and rind of the lemon and bring to the boil. Simmer until pumpkin is soft. Rub through a sieve and add the rum and the sugar. Cover will and let stand for one week, then filter carefully and bottle. Drink and go blind.

Now we did find one more recipe for a pumpkin brandy. The team of legal eagles at Greenopolis.com asks us (insists, really) to remind you that distilling alcohol in the U.S. is illegal without a license. Us telling you vaguely how to do it is not illegal, however, so here goes.

Try this recipe a few miles offshore or in a more fun country:



Pumpkin Brandy
Cook pumpkin meat with a little water until you have a thin, sweet soup. Cool the result to about 75°F and place in a sanitary vessel along with some yeast capable of fermenting very dry with a high alcohol tolerance, like champagne yeast. Wait a few weeks. Transfer the resultant wine to a still (you figure this part out yourself, high school science students) and distill the product down to brandy. Age in an oak barrel until it stops tasting like diesel fuel.

OK, this has all been meant in the good natured, high spirited (very high) fun that we associate with Halloween and the mess we have to clean up the next day. It is intended just to show you some of the ways you can use that leftover pumpkin other than compost or pie. Please drink, if at all, in moderation, and reuse pumpkins responsibly - you don’t want to end up like this!


Relaxing after some pumpkin beer - please don’t serve to minors!

OK, now’s where that pumpkin hangover remedy recipe?

Photo Credit: Tom Margie

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