Pumpkin beer is here

Pumpkins are fun to carve. Beer is delicious. The innovative beer masters at Propeller Brewery have decided to combine these popular fall items into one multi-tasking beverage: pumpkin ale.

Spicy, sweet and fresh, Propeller’s seasonal beer is made with Howard Dill’s Atlantic Giant Pumpkins and has been around since 2004.

This year’s batch was released this October after weeks of careful brewing.

Rebecca Milton, a Saint Mary’s University student and employee at Propeller says the pumpkin beer is in high demand in Halifax.

“I can tell you that everyone who comes in asks about it,” she says. “All day, every day, for the past two months.”

The brew is made from a secret recipe that combines fresh pumpkin with spices and all the usual beer ingredients like malt, hops and yeast.

Milton, who had never tasted the final product, was excited for the tentative release date of Sept. 29.
“I couldn’t wait, so I tried it a couple of weeks ago,” she said. “It definitely wasn’t ready yet.”

The beer is only made once a year, in limited quantity. Two tanks were made, which equals approximately 500 growlers or 1000 litres of beer.

The beer is available by the bottle or the growler – popular refillable two-litre jugs. Interested beer lovers can find pumpkin ale at the Propeller Brewery on 2011 Gottingen Street, or at select bars like The Foggy Goggle, before it’s gone.