From its gorgeous colors to the smell of crushed leaves, wet soil, and memories of time spent at the countryside harvesting crops, autumn holds a special place for me, so I wanted to brew a beer that would celebrate that. The first few pumpkin ales I tried were from my friends at True Brew and Higgins Ale Works at their annual pumpkin ale tap takeover. The blend of spices, malts, hops and of course pumpkin were enticing enough that I also wanted to take a stab at it with my own interpretation. With an affinity for saisons and farmhouse ales, and after plenty of research on the right kind of gourd to use, I finally brewed an experimental batch in late 2021. Not too high on alcohol, it had a smooth mouthfeel, and the peppery notes of the saison yeast played really well with the other spices. Based on that recipe I tweaked some of the malts and added some extra ingredients like juniper and candy sugar to give it a richer foundation on which the spices could shine, and thus the 2022 edition was brewed. Bolder and brighter, it clocked in at 7.2%, which allowed for half of the batch to be cellar aged for a year then bottled and aged for another year. In 2024 a new batch was brewed with some significant changes: different malt bill for a darker color, a little less alcohol, using pumpkin as well as squash, honey addition in the fermenter instead of the boil, juniper berries in the spice mix instead of juniper branches in the brewing water.