Pumpkin Beers Ain't That Bad, Baby: Pumpkin Lager by Lakefront Brewery

I will be upfront with you: I hate the phrase "pumpkin spice". Who among us eats a cinnamon roll or a bratwurst and thinks, "I love the pumpkin spice in this!"

While I am probably wrong, I attribute the contemporary inundation of store shelves every late summer/autumn with products made with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and clove (maybe even mace) to Starbucks and their Pumpkin Spice Latte which they unleashed upon us earlier this century sometime. "Pumpkin spice" foods just seemed to go apeshit in its wake.

Of course, the spices themselves have rich culinary histories that long predate Europeans pairing them with a particular winter squash native to North America. Aside from allspice, which is indigenous to the Caribbean, they all come from the East Indies which are probably not called that anymore. But that was their moniker back when Christopher Columbus figured that the spice must flow and he consequently sailed west in search of them so he could get in on the spice trade which was quite profitable. Indonesians were cooking with these spices before any white people knew what pumpkins and coffee were.

Back in the Middle Ages, European cooks had various spice blends in their repertoire. Amongst the most popular was Powder Douce, a mellow one and, while recipes for it certainly varied, it was commonly made of ginger, cinnamon, clove, sugar, and nutmeg. It's stronger cousin, Powder Forte, was often a mix of ginger, cinnamon, clove, cubebs, grains of paradise, and black pepper. Look familiar? I honestly don't know if the blend of spices commonly used to season pumpkin derives from these medieval concoctions but I'd bet it does.

I remember seeing jars of McCormick Pumpkin Pie Spice mix when I was a kid and the internet tells me the term "pumpkin spice" dates back to 1936. But it is ubiquitous this time of year these days in a way that it wasn't, say, 20 or more ago. There just weren't pumpkin spice lattes, cookies, breakfast cereals, pretzels, artificial coffee creamers, yoghurt, popcorn, kale chips, margarine, cream cheese, almonds, and so on. And there were a lot fewer pumpkin beers.

Which leads me nicely to the subject of this blog post, Lakefront's Pumpkin Lager.

I am not sure when Lakefront started brewing it, but I think they've being doing so for a while now.** Lakefront throws in everything including the kitchen sink here. It is brewed with pumpkin and not just the associated spices. Plus, they don't skimp on those spices. They use them all: cinnamon, allspice, ginger, nutmeg, clove, and mace. Most pumpkin beers are ales but, as the names indicates, this is a lager.

This was another very pretty beer. On top was a lovely just off-white head that was a bit on the firm side. The liquid was a gorgeous light amber and clear. I could see a smattering of bubbles inside. Taking a sniff, I caught basically all of the spices listed on the label. Nutmeg/mace came first and was most prominent. This was followed by ginger and cinnamon. Bringing up the rear were fainter traces of clove and allspice.

It being a fall beer, Pumpkin Lager is medium bodied. I caught a hint of fizz amidst the spices which take pride of place here. Nutmeg/mace and cinnamon were the leaders of the pack. Pumpkin doesn't, as far as I can tell, add much flavor to beer. To my tastebuds, it gives a slight starchy smoothness to the beer as well as a mellow earthy flavor that is easily hidden by all of the spices. Finally, I tasted a hint of grain underneath it all.

On the finish, some bitterness emerged and I could taste hops for the first time. There was a peppery flavor that lingered which I think was the hops and perhaps some ginger in combination. The nutmeg/clove/cinnamon thing was relegated to the back of the line here.

This is an excellent beer. There's very little sweetness which is why I think of it as not aspiring to mimic pumpkin pie like so many pumpkin beers do. Instead, it tastes like a beer with spices. It had a pleasing smoothness to it and I loved the peppery zing on the finish. At 6.1% A.B.V., it's a tasty bulwark against the encroaching cool of autumn. 

Junk food pairing: You can't go wrong by washing down a tube of Pringles Rotisserie Chicken crisps with some Pumpkin Lager.

** I emailed Lakefront about this and a marketing person replied, "I believe the first time we made the lager was in 1989".