Name: Pumpkin Ale
Brand: Kern River Brewing Co
Availability: InStock

The ingredient statement on the can of Kern River Brewing Company's Pumpkin Ale is unusually short. Malt beverage brewed with pumpkin and allspice. Two things, and no list after them.

The beer came back this week as one half of a double release, announced alongside the fifth entry in the brewery's 20th anniversary collaboration series. Kern River describes loads of real pumpkin and just enough allspice, and treats the beer as a fall-only run that does not come around at any other point in the year.

That short ingredient line is the interesting part. Allspice is not a blend, despite the name. It is a single dried berry from Pimenta dioica, a tree native to the Caribbean and Central America, and it picked up its English name because early traders decided it tasted like cinnamon, nutmeg and clove at the same time. One spice reaching ground that a pumpkin pie blend normally needs three or four to cover.

Used on its own it also behaves a little differently. Allspice tends to land warm and faintly peppery, without the sharp medicinal edge clove can bring when it is dosed separately, and without the drying grip of too much cinnamon. For a beer the brewery is positioning as a transition into fall rather than a full seasonal statement, that is a reasonable place to sit.

The other half of the ingredient line deserves a note as well. A fair number of pumpkin beers are built entirely out of spice, with the gourd implied rather than added. Kern River is specific that this one uses real pumpkin, and the can's ingredient statement says the same thing.

Pumpkin Ale is out now in 16 ounce four packs from the Kernville brewery, which is shipping orders alongside the Cellarmaker collaboration released the same day.

Editor’s Take

Allspice is the great impostor of the spice rack. It is one berry off one tree, and it has spent four centuries being mistaken for a blend, largely because English traders tasted it, concluded it was cinnamon and nutmeg and clove holding a meeting, and named it accordingly. Most pumpkin beers assemble that effect from three or four separate jars. Kern River has reached for the berry that already does the job on its own, which strikes me as quietly clever rather than merely tidy.

What I like more is the restraint in just enough allspice. Pumpkin beer has a long and honourable history of arriving at the glass tasting like a scented candle, and the usual correction is to lean harder on actual gourd, which is not really a flavour so much as a texture. Loads of real pumpkin with a light hand on the one spice is the version of this beer that leaves room for a plate of food alongside it. Roast pork, a sharp cheddar, anything that has spent time near a flame.

Source & Editorial

JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.

Pumpkin Ale Runs on Allspice, Which Covers for Three Spices

The ingredient line on the can reads pumpkin and allspice, then stops. Kern River's fall seasonal is back for its once-a-year run, with a single spice standing in for the whole pie spice rack.

Source & Editorial