Pumpkin Ale Question

[jerbot]

First post here...

I've been an armature brewer for a while and this year I thought of trying my hand at a pumpkin ale.

While looking through pumpkin beer recipes I couldn't really find any trend in the "type" of beer they typically are. The only commonality I could see between most of the recipes (excluding the pumpkin...) was that most were ales.

So, this is my question:

Are pumpkin ales normally one variety of ale (IPA, red, mild, etc.) that has pumpkin added to it OR is there no real trend, and any random ale is equally likely to have it's recipe altered to be a pumpkin beer?


addendum to that question:
When I get a pumpkin ale at a beer distributor, aside from knowing it's an ale and tastes like pumpkins do I know anything else about it's general make-up?

 

[jeepinjeepin]

Most of them I have seen are Amber Ales or Brown Ales. Remember, you have to start with a good beer, a beer that you would drink without the pumpkin and/or spices.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

It's usually a simple brown ale.

 

[Guidry]

There is a very good recipe for a pumpkin porter in Calgione's Extreme Brewing book. I'd probably cut the spices back by about 20% though.

 

[ABrewingApe]

I've seen pumpkin amber ales, brown ales, porters, and stouts, and while different they were all tasty. Consider the roasty, squashy flavor a pumpkin adds to a beer and figure that any beer which agrees with that sort of flavor might as well get a pumpkin tossed into the recipe for grins.

The consistent thing about pumpkin beers seems to be that they're gently hopped, usually spiced, and often malty. With that as a guide, you can choose whatever type you like. Experiment! I've wondered what a green-pumpkin IPA would taste like.