Average aging time for a pumpkin ale?

[ianhoopes]

Hey all! I am absolutely obsessed with brewing beer. It is making me fat.

But I digress.

I made a pumpkin ale some six-eight weeks ago. I let it sit in primary and chill for a good 3-4 weeks before bottling, and tried a bottle maybe oh, two weeks ago and had a really OK beer. It wasn't super impressive, and not much spice flavor.

I used the recipe outlined here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f76/smoked-spiced-pumpkin-ale-282004/

My question is this: I know with bigger beers like this it takes time, but do you all think the spice and pumpkin flavor will assert itself over time, or diminish? FWIW, the beer finished at a significantly lower gravity than the recipe (I used Fison yeast instead of what was specified), 1.010 instead of 1.021, therefore more alcohol. Let me know what you all think.

I'm planning on doing a Christmas ale later this month or earlier next month, and I don't want to have to wait forever to enjoy that. Also I need to know if I should use more overall spices than I did in my pumpkin. Thanks all!

 

[jonmohno]

Spices usually dimishes or fade some,so at first month after carbing is what the spice "peak" should be and you can go from there to decide how much more to add next time. In generall spices later in the boil will be more up front in aroma/taste.But with age it usually melds and mellows. I guess its possible with that recipe maybe the hops are covering up the spices some,and maybe those hops will fade out.Recipe says "its balanced" though so maybe no late hop addition next time or just more of the late additon spices, seems that boiling them 90 min will put the spices in the background more so just pull some of those and use them for adding more late addition spices to bring it more upfront. Complexity can really evolve and change over time often month to month and you really have a different beer each time and seems not to taste the same.
I really like how mine have evolved over a few months like 2-3+ months. If they are good sooner then thats great too.

 

[ianhoopes]

Thanks. I thought a 90min boil was kind of extreme - I don't really plan on doing it again. Well, unless I decide to make some absurdly bitter beer.

 

[TopherM]

Most pumpkin ales are based on an amber recipe with the pumpkin and spices added.

The base of your beer seems to be closer to a porter/bordering on a stout. It may be hard to have pronounced pumpkin spice that would overcome the darker sweet and smokey malts you used in this beer. Most commercial examples are just an amber, so they are lighter and don't have much body or other flavors to compete with the pumpkin spices.

I know from my experience that in my amber-based pumpkin ales, the spices are definitely more prominant in the first few weeks. However, they are still very present in a well-aged beer, and seem to blend and meld more to create a more complex beer. I always drink about 3/4 of my pumpkin ales starting about 4-6 weeks after brew day, but then bottle the rest and let it condition longterm until Thanksgiving. Both the young beer and the aged beer are very good, but very different.

Anyway, I think the roasted barley and smoked malt in the recipe you used probably compete with the pumpkin spices. The pumpkin flavor in your beer isn't going to get more prominant over time, but the beer will get more complex and is definitely worth aging for a few months, especially if you aren't in love with the current beer.

Good luck!