Robin Shepard
Pumpkin beers are at the height of their popularity from now until Thanksgiving. Lakefront Brewery offers an imperial pumpkin ale that departs from the field with spirit-like warmth from extended aging in brandy barrels.
What is it? Brandy Barrel Aged Imperial Pumpkin from Lakefront Brewery of Milwaukee.
Style: Pumpkin beers are customarily fall seasonals. They vary in the intensity of pumpkin flavor and in how they are made. Overall, you'll find them mostly as top-fermenting ales, often incorporated in styles such as amber ales, porters or stouts. They are usually made with the same spices found in pumpkin pie, such as cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg. As an imperial, this beer has a little more of everything, and when combined with brandy barrel-aging, it’s bigger in flavor and stronger in alcohol.
Background: Lakefront first made this beer for its 25th anniversary back in 2012. It was created by head brewer Marc “Luther” Paul and brewery owner Russ Klisch, along with a few other Lakefront employees. It’s been a limited fall release ever since. It was popular at the recent Great American Beer Festival in Denver: “We kept running out of it each day,” says Paul. And Lakefront Imperial Pumpkin recently won national grand champion honors in the spiced beer category at the 2015 U.S. Beer Tasting Championships.
Paul says pumpkin beers can be tricky to make: “You can overdo the spices and it becomes one-dimensional, so balance is a big thing in pumpkin beer.” This one starts off as a robust amber ale; toward the end of the boil phase of brewing Paul adds cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and a little bit of ginger. After the beer finishes primary fermentation, it’s aged in brandy barrels, along with a small number of Madagascar vanilla beans.
Paul says he wants the beer to be on local store shelves in early fall, so he has to make arrangements months before to get the used barrels from barrel brokers for a timely release. This year’s version was held for six months in oak barrels. Paul says he’s hoping that next year he’ll be able to get barrels early enough so that the beer to have at least nine months of aging before it’s bottled.
Lakefront also makes Pumpkin Lager, which also appears this time of year. The imperial version is much richer in its spicy qualities, and the brandy barrel aging distinguishes it from the more balanced lager version.
Lakefront Imperial Pumpkin ale finishes at 9.5% ABV. It’s sold in four-packs of 12 ounce bottles for $11-$12.
Tasting notes:
Aroma: Assertive cinnamon and nutmeg stand out in the mixture of spices.
Appearance: Hazy reddish-bronze to amber color; with a medium soft tan head.
Texture: Medium- to full-bodied with softness and warmth of alcohol.
Taste: All those rich pumpkin spices are up front. Beyond the cinnamon and nutmeg there are hints of ginger. However, the sweetness of brandy blends and softens things quite nicely.
Finish/Aftertaste: As the spices taper off, the brandy and spirit warmth comes out even more, especially as the beer warms to room temperature.
Glassware: The tulip or snifter style of glass is great for enjoying the spices of this imperial pumpkin. Sip it slowly and allow it to warm so the sweetness of the brandy and oak have more of a chance to emerge from the flavors.
Pairs well with: Pumpkin beers go well with sweet stews and meat dishes, but I like them best on their own as an appetizer or an after-dinner drink.
The Verdict: A little pumpkin spice in beer goes a long way for me. For that reason, I’m a hard sell on gourd brews. However, the aging in oak barrels laced with the strong fruit-sweetness of brandy, coupled with vanilla, makes this pumpkin presentation surprisingly good – albeit spicy, big and strong. There’s a lot of cinnamon and nutmeg in the aroma and flavor. The peppery tones of clove and ginger add to the alcoholic warmth. A sweetness in the finish smooths it all out.
There is a little trick this one plays with its boozy spirit-and-alcohol burn. It might mellow some with a little more aging, so I’m laying down a couple of bottles to see what might happen in a year or so.
