Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 40 - Pumpkin Beers Homebrew Edition (feat. Mike Vertucci)
117 Plays4 years ago
On this episode we reconcile with our feelings from episode 35 by drinking some of our own home brewed beers. We also welcome super fan Mike Vertucci on to the show and drink his Pumpkin Stout. Whose brew will reign supreme? Well, we know.. but you need to listen to find out.
Theme music provided by Myke Kelli (@mykekelli)
Break music provided by Fluid Minds (@englishsofthearts)
Outro provided by Fluid Minds (@fluidminds)
Check out all our episodes at www.themaltinghour.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'The Malting Hour'
00:00:04
Speaker
First the haps on the hops, got yeast and species This the molten hour where we talk about our drink And tell you what we think, every other week And if we get drunk, well we might slur our speech Got the gift of ab, the friends who wish you had Join us for a drink, join us for a lab Time is never wasted, way you're getting wasted The molten hour here, people, people taking places People, people taking places People, people taking places
00:00:31
Speaker
Is everybody taking their places? I hope so, because it's time for The Malting Hour. What have I started the show like that every time? It's like we're in a classroom setting. Brandon? No thanks. I said Brandon, not Clark. Fuck. Stupid Clark. Anyways, well there goes all the intro. Hi, I'm Tony. Welcome to The Malting
Revisiting Pumpkin Beer: Anticipation and Past Episodes
00:00:50
Speaker
Hour. I joined Always With...
00:00:52
Speaker
And sometimes... Clark Petridge. And today we are coming back around. I like that. And sometimes. This episode we are going to be discussing, finally, we're revisiting the pumpkin beer. I know how many of you, the listeners, were like, boy, when are they going to do their pumpkin beer episode? They talked about, you know, brewing their beers. They can do a better job than what they drank.
00:01:20
Speaker
I need to know how they did. Well, you're in luck. This is it. And we have a special guest with us. Number one fan.
Special Guest: Mike Vertucci and Humorous Anecdotes
00:01:28
Speaker
Number one listener. My brother-in-law and yours, Mike Vertucci. Hi, everyone. I should have had, oh man, I didn't think about applause. Should we do it again? Do you want to try it again? My brother-in-law and yours, Mike Vertucci.
00:01:50
Speaker
Hi, everyone. You blew it! You blew it! This is the first time I'm on here. Actually, it's the second time. You've been on before. Oh, yes. Yeah. Well, this time we're not brewing, but we are doing homebrew. First off, how's everyone doing? Brandon, how are you?
00:02:11
Speaker
I'm doing well, surviving. Not sick. I had to go to the emergency clinic this morning, so that wasn't fun. Was that for you? Yeah. I woke up and my uvula was super swollen. I thought only ladies had those.
00:02:29
Speaker
Becca was like, you should go get a strep test just in case. So I ran in, got a strep test, and I don't have strep. But they're like, here's some steroids just in case. Oh, cool. You're going to get buff now. That's how it works. Exactly. That's good. Fun times. Clark, how are you today? I'm great, great, great. Drinking, drinking. No work this week.
00:02:53
Speaker
Mmm, must be nice. And Mike, how are you? How are you doing, man? Last time you were on the show, maybe about a year ago when we did the Dunklewise brewing episode in my garage, we got through about half an episode and then your son started throwing up profusely and you had to leave. Yeah, that was not fun. But the episode was fun, right? Or was the puking not fun or the episode? No, the episode was awful. It was fine, it was cool.
00:03:23
Speaker
the
00:03:33
Speaker
Nice excuse. Man, what a jerk.
Pumpkin Beer Reflections and Brewing Plans
00:03:35
Speaker
Well, as everyone who listens to this show, we did do a pumpkin beer episode, which was a lot of fun. We did, though, me, Brandon, and Clark, we all kind of agreed that we weren't really impressed with those beers that we tried, except for the first one. And maybe, just maybe, we had a little bit of palate fatigue, because I know that I went back and had some of those beers.
00:04:01
Speaker
and they did not deserve the the the scathing reviews we gave them but at the time it felt correct yeah and i think again we're probably all in that same boat because all of us had not all of those beers but we've had some of those before and even after or while we were tasting and we're like this doesn't taste like i remember it tasting um so i think that was probably
00:04:27
Speaker
one of our bigger issues. But I'm glad that we weren't completely disappointed and afraid to go back to those beers. Good stuff. For sure. I was pretty rude to all those beers, as you can hear on that episode. And I did go back and have every single one of them again, I believe, and was much happier afterwards. I would say the only one... I do apologize. The only one that I still didn't really like was the
00:04:53
Speaker
the cold press, uh, pumpkin. That's true. That's tastes like coffee and a fucking wafer cookie in it. It's not terrible, but man, that's, I did not, even the second time around, like, Oh, that's right. This is the wafer cookie beer. Not good.
00:05:08
Speaker
Anyway, so we decided that we were gonna brew some pumpkin beers. Clark has his own recipe. Brandon and I shared a recipe. We did some minor tweaks to them. He did one way, I did another. And then Mike, you also, you messaged me after you had heard that we were gonna be doing, brewing our own, which I think was at the end of the pumpkin episode. Like, hey man, I want in on this. And I was like,
00:05:35
Speaker
What do you mean? I thought you maybe just wanted to be on the show. But no, you wanted to brew a beer, and you did brew a beer. You brewed something very different. So what we're going to do on this episode is go through these beers one at a time, talk about them, give our impressions. And maybe, just maybe, we will have an official malting hour pumpkin beer, or at least an idea of what we want when it comes to a pumpkin beer for this podcast. So we are going to start with, we all agreed on what Brandon's, correct?
00:06:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:06
Speaker
Now, Brandon, you and I did virtually the same thing. You tweaked it a little bit. I came up with this recipe. It's not the recipe I normally use, but it was a recipe that I liked and I thought, hey, this is going to be cool. And what I did was share it with you. I'm stalling as I flip through my phone to try and get to it. Oh, there it is. Hey. And it was pretty basic. The base, I used
00:06:36
Speaker
For Beersmith, I used the style as an amber ale, because I like the color as far as pumpkin beers being an amber ale. And this is a pretty easy recipe. I did eight pounds of Maris Otter Pale Malt, one pound of Flaked Oats Breeze, one pound of Carmel 120 Breeze,
00:06:56
Speaker
four ounces of lactose, one pound of brown sugar, one ounce of magnum, then two teaspoons of allspice, two teaspoons of nutmeg, and four teaspoons of cinnamon powder. And that was all during the boil. And we then fermented with the saffail USO5. Now, Brandon, what
Tasting Brandon's Pumpkin Beer
00:07:17
Speaker
did you do? That was a little different.
00:07:19
Speaker
So quick question, did you, for the lactose, you doubled your lactose, didn't you? Yeah, I'm just saying what the base recipe was, and that's what you, we'll get to that when we get to mine. Yeah, so the difference with what I did was I added actually a pound of canned pumpkin. We talked about this too when we were doing the pumpkin beer episode, so that's what Clark currently does. So I took that, I laid it out on a sheet pan, I roasted it, actually I sprinkled it with brown sugar, then I roasted it.
00:07:47
Speaker
and that went into the mash right at the beginning. I will say that the color is, looks like iced tea. Not the wrapper, but the drink, iced tea. And aroma-wise, it's not as... It smells more like beer than I do, than I do. It smells more like beer than I do, which is a good sign, but it smells more like just an ale than a pumpkin beer, but it does taste
00:08:17
Speaker
very good I like this little sweet not a lot of I don't know what am I somebody help me out here with my descriptors here what do you guys think I mean it's not one of you well what I'm not noticing is that there's no hot bitterness which there you know really shouldn't be in this
00:08:38
Speaker
because you want those other flavors to kind of, you know, take over. I'm getting a bite of something in there, a spice or not a spice, bitterness. Oh, yeah, I don't. It doesn't seem like hot, though, and I can't place it. Clark, you're all nice. But yes, so the thing about this beer, too, is there was I don't know where something went wrong, but something definitely went wrong.
00:09:07
Speaker
And this beer ended up being a lot lower than it was supposed to be. So especially with everything that I added to it, you know, so it had the, I mean, it still had the lactose. It's still, you know, I had additional sugars with the, you know, before going into the boil. And I think I hit my number fairly close, but for whatever reason, just came out super low. I forget what it was. Like I was so disappointed. I didn't even write it down, but it was like, I think it was almost like a 2% beer.
00:09:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's like two or three percent, something like that. Yeah, I think it's super low. I think when we did the math, when you were showing me the numbers and everything, it came out to a three percent beer. Now, the original recipe put it at a six point seven two percent beer. Yeah, something obviously went wrong along the way. Also, yeah, in a good way, this sort of reminds me of a very, very light. And I guess that makes sense now that it's a two to three percent beer, a very, very light version of Pumpkin Ale by Dogfish Hat.
00:10:03
Speaker
in a good way. It's like a more refreshing spritzy type version of that, if that makes sense. Yeah, I think this is probably, it's not a bad beer. And I'm not saying that because like, I did this recipe. I will say that I think out of all the pumpkin beers I've tasted that said that there's pumpkin in it because of maybe the low alcohol, I feel like I could taste pumpkin
00:10:29
Speaker
a good amount in this action. I definitely get pumpkin, too. The actual pumpkin, not the spices. Right, right. For sure. And a lot on the nose, too. I'm getting that, actually, as I bring that glass. Maybe that's what I'm smelling. And that's exactly what I want with a pumpkin beer, too. It's good. I like how it turned out.
Clark's Unique Brewing Techniques
00:10:52
Speaker
This was a happy accident.
00:10:53
Speaker
Yeah, now that I know it's three percent, I'm not going to feel so bad finishing this wine bottle of it. Oh, man. So, Braden, do you if if you were to do something, I mean, I guess.
00:11:09
Speaker
Like you said, it's a happy accident. If there was something that you were to change about this beer or the brewing process or something you would like to see, what do you think it would be? Honestly, I don't think there is anything. So because it came out so low just by some weird freak thing, I think I would do it again. And I would, because if I do, if everything turns out as it's supposed to, and I hit my numbers as far as the final gravity,
00:11:39
Speaker
closer to what it's supposed to be, I think I would up the pumpkin. Because I feel like if the booze is heavier on this, I feel like if it would have been six and a half percent beer, almost seven percent, you wouldn't, the pumpkin would be a little bit overshadowed, I feel. I'm wondering if, how that would turn out, and if anybody's ever tried to make like a pumpkin tincture of some sort, or is that something even worth trying? Like just the pumpkin? Yeah.
00:12:10
Speaker
that's
00:12:29
Speaker
That'd be interesting. Well, you're the dehydrating master of the four of us, so we'd have to call on you for that. So get ready for next year when we make our first dehydrated pumpkin ale. Thanks for listening, everybody, to the dehydration hour. This is Tony Gholiks, signing off. Bye. Amazon does sell pumpkin tincture. So here we go. What?
00:12:51
Speaker
I guess it's more of a pumpkin seed liquid extract here. I'm working on this right now. Interesting. A pumpkin seed extract. Interesting. High-strength alcohol-based liquid extract. Oh, alcohol-free version available. Pumpkin seed tincture contains only natural ingredients. Oh, pumpkin seed tincture? Yeah, so that's not exactly.
00:13:15
Speaker
but I wanna get it to try it. Pumpkin spice tincture, here we go, okay, okay. Don't really need that, we can make our own for that. But I wonder, I don't know, you said you put one pound of pumpkin in this, Brandon? Yep. The lingering aftertaste in my mouth is the smell of, when I smell a pumpkin. It's not a bad thing, it tastes like pumpkin. This is probably the best representation of pumpkin in a pumpkin beer I've ever had.
00:13:43
Speaker
So far. So far. So far. I don't want to jump. We'll save that. We'll save that. Anybody else have anything else to say about Brandon's adventure in pumpkin brewing here? Oh, very refreshing. Very nice. Yeah. I would really enjoy it. The only thing I wish it had was a little more head retention. I don't know if it's the spices that the oils and the spices
00:14:13
Speaker
because it's perfectly carbonated. I just got absolutely no head, even when I poured, right when I poured it. Sounds like my prom night. Yeah. I feel like that's a pumpkin ale thing though, isn't it?
00:14:25
Speaker
That very well could be. Well, I don't know. No, but one of the things I remember with pumpkin ale from Dogfish that is sort of the same thing. Maybe that's part of what's reminding me about it. Well, I'm wondering if is it more from the pumpkin? Because my my beer, well, at least because I'm I figured we'd go on to mine next because it's the same recipe if you guys are OK with it. Yes. Yeah. My beer actually has like I still have had on mine that I poured it off right before we started recording. There's still a little bit of head on it.
00:14:56
Speaker
Now you guys all have, take the red pill. You guys all have bottles of it that I just poured off of my calculator here. I didn't use any cool gun like Mike's got. So really the only thing, the things that, oh geez, as far as the recipe goes is I added
00:15:23
Speaker
The I upped my lactose from four ounces to eight ounces. And then I almost forgot to add all the spices instead of adding it with. Oh, yeah. 15 minutes of the boil. I added it while I was chilling. So there's that. And I hit my.
Mike's Pumpkin Stout Exploration
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah. And my numbers, instead of it being six point seven, it's seven and a half. So here we go. Yeah, so crazy. Two different sides of.
00:15:54
Speaker
You know, this. Yeah. Discernably darker. Yes. Yes. Boy, going from yours to mine. Okay. The spice is definitely a punch in the face when you smell it. Yeah. I feel like I went from subtle to fuck you. It's pumpkin bear bitch. Uh oh. Lost you out.
00:16:20
Speaker
Yeah, watch out. Yeah, get the added lactose. I can tell. Yeah, it's a bit sweeter, a bit... Watch out. Milkier, if you will. Oh, and I will. I feel like I'm missing the pumpkin flavor because I had yours, Brandon. Like, I wish...
00:16:48
Speaker
Did you get pumpkin? No, there's no pumpkin. Oh, that's what you're saying. You're missing it. Yeah. Not that you're no get it. It's just not there. Right. Right. It's it's funny because, you know, there I can taste the similarities between this beer and my beer. Definitely.
00:17:06
Speaker
But it is funny because it is noticeably missing when I drag. I'm like, oh, man. So I think this recipe is a winner. Doing it again, you know, what, you know, with what you did and adding the pumpkin, given that a whirl. See with it. See what that does for you.
00:17:25
Speaker
I like that. The best of both worlds. Yeah, exactly. Just like the never. I'm not going to make that reference. Yeah, I almost want to blend mix the two. Yeah, I think I'm going to. I was just thinking that I'm going to drink a little more of yours and do that. I'm going to pour a little bit of the brand new in here. Pour a little bit of Brandon in me, just like every episode, you know, you know, you know, you know, can get that fix. I need my Brandon fix every episode. All right, let me take a sip now.
00:17:58
Speaker
Yeah, it actually kind of, I don't know if my, no, there's pumpkin, more pumpkin in there. And it almost, because of the lightness of your version, Brandon, it almost helps take down some of the punch in your face spice that mine has. Oh, I also think I put more cinnamon in mine. I don't know if I mentioned that.
00:18:25
Speaker
But the spices are the same between you guys, only you did Whirlpool only tone. Correct. And I think I may have added a little more cinnamon. OK. Yeah. Yeah, because the spice is definitely amped up on yours, which surprised me because it's stronger. You'd think the alcohol and the lactose would kind of.
00:18:45
Speaker
bury the spices down a little bit, but... Turns out when you whirlpool those spices, you're just really extracting all that goodness, just like when you're making New England IP-8s, kids. No, that's what I did on the stop, too, was a whirlpool as well as a tincture. Hey, hey, we'll get to your... Pump the brakes, pump the brakes. Now I know what's coming, geez. Oh, boy. Yeah, I feel like I would definitely love to...
00:19:13
Speaker
Clark, you and I had this conversation already, that we, every time we, we, or maybe we actually, this is on Plop Day, the three of us had this conversation. Cool, we brewed pumpkin beer, and now that we've poured off a couple pints, it's like, yep, don't want any more. Yeah, I said I have barely had any. You said you barely had any. Brandon said, oh, I've actually been drinking through mine.
00:19:35
Speaker
Well now I understand what Brandon's been drinking through his yeah like his is I remember trying it when we went stop by for the revolution episode the deepwood episode I did try a little bit of it and I
00:19:48
Speaker
definitely understand why you can drink through yours. For me, it's more of like, ooh, hey. The only other person that has had some other than you guys is Stephanie Bannies. She's enjoyed it, and she doesn't like beer. So guess what, Steph? You're getting a growler. Congratulations. Thanks for listening to the Molting Hour, everybody. Have a good night, and we'll see you next time.
Concluding Thoughts and Future Experiments
00:20:08
Speaker
Yay! All right, good. He's gone again. Finally. So what do we really think about Tony's beer now that he's gone?
00:20:19
Speaker
I really enjoyed it. Oh. I knew it was still here. Damn it. Both of those responses were funny.
00:20:30
Speaker
Yeah, I will say it would be fun to not necessarily redesign this, but yeah, actually redesign this beer to incorporate pumpkin. I like the strong pumpkin flavor that we got from yours, Brandon. And if we could, actually what I think we should do is brew this beer on your system as we've learned from the cinnamon roll stout.
00:20:53
Speaker
that when you and I brew together on your system, hey, watch out. We are hitting numbers and we're hitting them hard. I think it'd be fun to revisit this next year. Yeah, I think the first thing we ever brewed on that setup, like all of that stuff, I think is when we did the, I think we had done shaggy tail again. And maybe that's what we had done. Yeah. Well, you guys, you and Mike did shaggy tail on there with the... No, originally we did that at Mike's. Oh, right. We did that at Mike's setup.
00:21:25
Speaker
I thought was um wasn't soul survivor the first no part of it part of it yeah we did that big day where we all brewed right but i'm trying to think of like when the first time we did it oh but i feel like we've always hit when we've worked on your your setup together we've hit the numbers pretty well so i think if we were to
00:21:46
Speaker
Revisit this beer follow what you did as far as pumpkin Someone's Space heater is warming up and off to space Brandon goes I Can't help but point out the stuff I hear in the background because when I listen every chance and I hear stuff I it just it's there I
00:22:09
Speaker
It's in my head. Yeah, I think if we could figure out what would be the right amount of pumpkin to add to this beer, we could have a solid beer for now. I mean, we've got two more beers in front of us, and I don't know what to expect. Do you guys have anything else to say about my beer?
00:22:33
Speaker
I think I like the spice level. So I think, um, so here's, here's where I would, what I'm questioning is if we do take this and add pumpkin, like it may be in the best interest of the beer to actually up the spice a little bit too. You know, just to kind of a comment to accommodate for that, but I dunno, maybe we don't have to, uh, maybe it'll,
00:22:58
Speaker
Maybe a little even out. I don't know. I like the spiciness. I like that the spice is a lot more in your face than it is in mine, but it's just missing that pumpkin. But I feel like you add the pumpkin, you might lose the kick of the spiciness that I like. I actually just went back to a little pour of yours without mine and
00:23:16
Speaker
Yeah, man, that pumpkin, I don't know if you guys, do you guys have any more? I know Brandon, you did a very nice fill for us. Do you guys have a little bit of Brandon's left to just go now that we've done? Yeah, let me head on back there. Man, I really like it. And you're right, Mike, there is a bite of something. I can't put my finger on it. That's the cover.
00:23:45
Speaker
Oh, no. Enjoy it. Yeah, no, I still get that hit on the nose right when you get that glass, which I really like. Here we go. I can't. Man, that's good, Brandon. Thanks, man. Yeah, that's a solid beer. Yeah. You know what? I would even just, if we could find a way to
00:24:20
Speaker
like brother beers right there you know you want you want a milder version of a pumpkin ale here you are it's the same recipe but it's it's brought down a little bit do you want the bigger version of this beer well then you have my beer uh my version of it it's like doing like it's like the southern tier like the 2x like this 2x 3x whatever yeah it's just bigger versions i like it
00:24:39
Speaker
master what you did, I would be happy with that too.
00:24:46
Speaker
Beautiful, beautiful. But Tony's does need that pumpkin. Yeah, mine definitely does need the pumpkin. Well, that's where I'll agree on that. Yeah. I think before we move on to anything else, let's take a break real quick. We'll come right back. Break time. Break time.
00:26:05
Speaker
Let's get away All that she ever wanted to She can always say
00:27:58
Speaker
And we're back! Ho ho ho! Like Santa? That was like subdued. I was gonna say or you can do the somber music again but that works that was that was good I like that I like that uh getting us into the mood like coming back when it's like
00:28:26
Speaker
And we're back at the Molting Hour. Starring us. And sometimes that guy Clark. And we're back. Yeah, that was good. I'm going to keep all that in. We are back. Welcome back to the Molting Hour. We're still drinking pumpkin beer. And I'm glad to know that Mike really getting into that vape right there.
00:28:54
Speaker
Take it easy All that shit gets picked up. I told you I'm pointing out everything Yeah, I'm looking forward to this ending to be honest. I don't know if I ever need to drink another fucking pumpkin beer I've enjoyed all the all the pumpkin beers I've had this year But I felt like we really got really excited about pumpkin beers that were really let down and now I'm just Going straight at it, but Clark don't let me let my thoughts detour us from the the route we're about to go which is
00:29:24
Speaker
having your beer. Oh, wait, Brandon, did you come up with a name for your beer yet? Your pumpkin beer? Nope. I was just calling it the great pumpkin. I think we'll call mine the great pumpkin, and we'll just call yours the pumpkin. Maybe it should be the other way around. Yours is the pumpkin. I think it's the other way around. Mine's the pumpkin? I mean, his is great, but his has the pumpkin. So that's what we call the pumpkin. Get it? There you go. Anyways, Clark, you have the mic.
00:29:53
Speaker
We're all drinking Mr. Rumpkin's pumpkin ale. Got the fourth or fifth year in a row. Yeah. Sorry, so I was gonna say, do you have your recipe in front of you by any chance? I do have my recipe. I'm also gonna get into the naming of this beer. I know everyone wants to know.
00:30:09
Speaker
Oh, boy. But many, many, many years ago, my dog Rooney, Tony, you know Rooney very well. My best friend. Sorry, Brandon. We'd buy her little stuffed toys to kill. And one year around Halloween, there was a little pumpkin. So we named him Mr. Rumpkin. So we figured he deserves his own beer named after him. He's long gone, by the way. RIP. RIP. Never forget. Yeah. So this is probably the fourth and fifth time I've made this. Back in the day, I think I've said on many episodes that I've been
00:30:39
Speaker
maybe up until this year, a pretty big pumpkin beer fan. That's kind of how I got into craft beer, I want to say. But we had our episode back earlier in the fall where I kind of got pretty angry about all the pumpkin beers we had when I didn't. That's exactly what a description can hold their own.
00:31:01
Speaker
I was very rude and as I said earlier, I apologize to all those breweries because I thought at the time they didn't hit me in the face with all the pumpkin. I didn't get any pumpkin, I didn't get any spices, I didn't get anything. So it was time to brew again, Mr. Rumkin. And this time I figured, let's do this. Let's really hit them hard. Let's give you a pumpkin stuff. Now, saying that, I did brew only a two and a half gallon batch because I knew
00:31:28
Speaker
It wouldn't be drank all that much. Way to plan ahead. So I'm kind of glad I did that. So we got a pretty hefty, hefty little beer. I'm going to guess it's around 6% ABV. Oh, that's right. Clark doesn't use hydrometers. Well, let's not say I don't use them. It's more I forget to use them. Oh, right, right, right. It's always about five minutes too late. So I'll just go off a year I actually did use a hydrometer. So it's probably around 6%.
00:31:59
Speaker
But we've got in this beer, you know, these little two-row, got some caramel crystal 60, about 12 ounces of special B. Then here's where the fun comes in. We've got two and a half ounces of smoked malt. What? Yeah. Yeah. I use at least a pound of pumpkin, as Brandon does. I roasted it in the oven for a while with spices in there. No brown sugar though.
00:32:26
Speaker
So you add the spices when you do the... Yeah, I mix it all in, put a bowl, mix it all together, then roast it. So try to get it all baked in there. And then let's see what else. We got pumpkin pie spice in the boil, which I did towards the end. This time I used to put it at the beginning and after a bit of, you know, years of doing hazies,
00:32:52
Speaker
kind of learned that that doesn't do anything. But that's why I went at the end of the Whirlpool, a little bit of cinnamon stick at the end of the boil, and then a little dry hop of some pumpkin pie spice cinnamon stick allspice berries. So we're hitting you. We're hitting you hard, man. Well, that's Mr. Rumpkin for you. If I can say anything, number one, you're never allowed on the show again. Thank you.
00:33:22
Speaker
Number two, especially if you're making a beer where we're drinking up against beers that I have made and Brandon has made. And number three, it's because, man, this beer is really good.
00:33:36
Speaker
Agreed. Well, thank you. If I had to choose between the three right now and sorry, Mike, I know you're about to say something. I know we haven't had your stout yet. But holy shit. I mean, and then hearing everything that you did with it, when you said the smoked malt, I was taken aback. And then I was like, oh. The care and the love into the beer. And just when I poured it, super clear.
00:33:59
Speaker
you know, perfect head for a pumpkin beer, you know, it's not. Yeah, definitely light on the head like the others. Yeah. Like I said, this is solid, man. I wish every commercial pumpkin beer tasted like this. You made love to this beer, man. Well, that's sort of that's what I was going for. I wanted a hit of pumpkin. The problem is, though, I only want this, you know, two or three times a season. Can you brew three bombers? Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:24
Speaker
Yeah, even two and a half gallons is a little much. So what was awesome about this, though, so when you were reading or going through the ingredients, I took my first sip. I smelt it first, so I have a comment on that. But when I took a sip, I'm like, I'm getting a hint to smoke on this. And you're like, smoke smoke. I was like, oh, there's something in the bag. It's almost like a little tiny smokiness. But I love it, man. This is awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
00:34:53
Speaker
Yeah, this is a really solid beer. Oh, and my comment on the aroma real quick was that when I first took a smell, it smells like a slice of pumpkin pie. That's what I got. Yes. I mean, there's probably close to three to four tablespoons, not tablespoons, teaspoon. Oh, it might be tablespoons. I don't know. It's a lot of pumpkin pie. Was it the big scoop or the little scoop? I don't know. OK. It was the middle size scoop. Mike, you were about to say something?
00:35:23
Speaker
I was just going to say it. It's anyways. So sorry. Go ahead, Mike. It smells sweet, but it's not overly sweet. Like the balances there with the spice, the bitterness, the sweetness. Solid work, man. There is this like fruitiness I get. What yeast did you use? It was.
00:35:51
Speaker
uh white labs and i mean okay that makes sense then i was gonna say and it's not a bad thing it's not like oh everything's so great but you know what i wish there's this no actually i i think it like complements it um
00:36:08
Speaker
You know, my pumpkin beer can go to hell in comparison to this. If I want to brew a pumpkin beer, Clark, I feel like Mr. Rumkin might be the winner as far as the regular amber ale. Now I wish, no, thank you. It is really good. And it seems like, not seems like, it's apparent that you,
00:36:31
Speaker
put a lot of thought behind it, and you didn't just do what I like to do, which is just throw, it's like cooking, whatever happens happens when brewing is more like baking, where you have to almost, not almost, but you really need to think about what you're doing and be a little bit more specific. I like the idea. Think about what you're doing, use all the best professional tools to make sure you're measuring correctly, all the way through. All the way through. And then at the end you get a mystery ABV, that's my specialty.
00:37:03
Speaker
I've been doing this for a number of years and every time I've tried to tweak a little bit to make it
00:37:08
Speaker
Honestly, probably heavier on the pumpkin in the spice, because why not? Boy, I don't know what else to say about this. Actually, the one thing I will say, if you were to ever do some type of variant of this, New Belgium doesn't do it anymore, because they only now release their atomic pumpkin, their habanero pumpkin beer.
00:37:33
Speaker
They used to do one where they added a little bit of cranberry to it, and I absolutely love that. Using the English aleast on this?
00:37:44
Speaker
That would be a fun thing to do with this. Not that it needs it to change it, but the way that the geese and the spices and everything that you've done with this beer, to do something fun, maybe to switch it up, to maybe add a little cranberry to this, whether it be extract or tincture or mash or secondary, whatever. That might be something else for this, but that's it. I was open to playing.
00:38:10
Speaker
All right, cool. Well, thank you. Oh, sorry. Well, I was going to say real quick, too. So kind of good, Tony. I was trying to segue the show to like end it where we weren't going to get to Mike Spear. Well, you ruined that joke. Anyway, thanks, Brandon.
00:38:26
Speaker
What I was going to say about the Clark's beer, when I was tasting my case of mine and then I tasted yours, this is the spice level that I imagine having to come through. And Clark puts it in when he roasts the pumpkin. I think that's a key thing right there. I think that's what elevates this. Because you're opening up those spices in the oven first, and then you're boiling them. So you're probably getting everything you can out of those spices. So good.
00:39:12
Speaker
I think I'd mentioned it, maybe to all you guys, when it comes to making a pumpkin beer, I want, I almost want to get like a crust, like a pie crust flavor in it, like to make a pumpkin pie beer. Would biscuit malt, yeah, okay, so we did have the discussion of that. I think maybe like, you know, they say use 15 or 20% in the batch, maybe even more than that, like a ridiculous amount. Like 30, 40? 30, 40, like, I don't know.
00:39:21
Speaker
Good call on that man.
00:39:44
Speaker
Well, Clark, did you just use pale malt, right? Yes, sir. Well, no, he said Special B, too. Yeah, Special B. There's a good call. And that gives you a little of that. That gives you a pretty flavor, as well. Because, well, Special B also gives off a raisiny flavor. Like a radio. Yeah. Depending on how much you use. So I feel like that's maybe where I'm getting some fruitiness, as well. Thank you for reminding me about the Special B. So I feel like the English ale
00:40:05
Speaker
Yeast and the special be gives off that little bit of fruitiness and if we added like some biscuit malt to this like that Not some but like you're saying maybe just kind of really push it I feel like maybe we should do some one gallon batches leading up to October next year
00:40:21
Speaker
because I don't want to do five. You mean not now? I don't want to do five gallon batches. Yeah, let's all do one more round of pumpkin beers. Here we go. January 1st, the next, the January episode is pumpkin ale number three. But yeah, that's something I've been wanting to get in my beer. But yeah, Clark, I can't say it enough, man. That is a solid freaking beer, like not only a solid pumpkin beer, but just a really,
00:40:51
Speaker
Nice beer overall. Well, thanks. Yeah, that's the nicest. Brandon, can we get a round of applause for that? Yeah, what about a game show sound so we can play guess the AVV? It's a lot of baseball. Oh, at least you had a disappointing reaction to only having the...
00:41:18
Speaker
All right, well, we got through the three pumpkin ales, and now it's time for our guest, Mike, to talk about his beer, which I am very excited about because I have done a pumpkin stout before, which as we talked about on the actual pumpkin beer episode, Warlock is one of my favorite pumpkin beers of all time. This time wasn't that great, but after we did the show, I went back and had my other Warlocks, and it was
00:41:47
Speaker
just as good as I remember. I think a pumpkin stout is a really nice way to present the pumpkin beer. But Mike, you took a little bit of a different approach. I went full on American stout with my pumpkin beer. But you, my friend, went another way. So without further ado, my brother-in-law and yours, the man who hates to hear himself but listens to every episode, Mike Vartucci.
00:42:17
Speaker
So yeah, I went with a recipe I don't think I've made in probably five years, my Guinness clone. And yeah, just boosted it up with, I think, well, no, it was five pounds of pumpkins that I bought. Ended up being three pounds of the meat that I sous vide for, I don't know, maybe an hour.
00:42:46
Speaker
Um, a couple tablespoons, well, no, one tablespoon of, I think it was McCormick's, uh, pumpkin pie spice in the mash, another half a tablespoon Whirlpool. And then I made another tablespoon tincture, which I added at packaging. So that's, I,
00:43:15
Speaker
I didn't go into the detail as it's collected, but. Well, no, what's the grain bill on this? Do you have that for any of my chance? Yes, I do. I got eight pounds of pale marisader, eight ounces of flaked barley, eight ounces of black patent malt, eight ounces of roasted barley, and two ounces of fuggle at first wort. So I will say this.
00:43:45
Speaker
My palate might be a little fatigued. I'm missing a little of the pumpkin spice. But the more, as you were talking, I kept taking more sips and more sips and I started getting more of the subtle notes of pumpkin. It's more of a pumpkin spice as far as subdued. I will say this, goddamn, that's a good dry Irish stout, my friend.
00:44:09
Speaker
Yeah, that was my first initial reaction was, damn, this is good. He forgot the pumpkin stuff, yeah. Fuck the pumpkin. And then he said, oh, it's my Guinness clone. I said, OK, yeah. Yeah, I don't know if I get a whole lot of pumpkin. And again, it could be because we did. I thought maybe doing a stout last would have been better. Maybe I need some water. Well, if we've learned anything, that's probably definitely
00:44:37
Speaker
happening. Yeah, now I kind of wish mine came third, to be honest. Well, now we know that Clark goes last. Yeah, Clark's always last now. Whoops, whoops. But I could see and you and I talked about this on Halloween in my THC gummy haze.
00:45:06
Speaker
I tried it after a little while and I got I think I said the same thing I was like I really get the the stout flavor from it I really like the Guinness
00:45:23
Speaker
Really, it's just a good stout, man. Yeah, I'm very happy with the stout recipe. But yeah, I don't know if I get a lot of pumpkin. I have to agree that it needs more. I used an ale, a standard ale amount of pumpkin and spice when I should have amped it up. Yeah, well, just triple it.
00:45:49
Speaker
Now I'm gonna roast it with, I'm gonna go with your roasting with the spices from now on. I've learned you just gotta go way more than you think you do. If you want that, I mean... Yeah, no, no, that's... Hey, Mike, what did you say you sous vide? Yes.
00:46:11
Speaker
What did you do, Vy? Oh, the pumpkin. OK. Yeah, because it was fresh pumpkins that I slaughtered myself. Oh, you went that route. OK. Yeah. My grocery store had them for $0.39 a pound. So I found that.
00:46:29
Speaker
I mean, shit, honestly, I feel like for the next St. Patrick's Day episode, we didn't do one this week. This would be a good, yeah. Oh, it's your question about the pumpkin, though, too, that you got. Did you get, like, the baking pumpkins, or was it like? Yes, they were pie pumpkins. Very good. I did not use my son's jack-o-lantern. That was melting away on the porch. With the squirrels left, I put in a bag and boiled it for a little while. Ooh, we got a bagel in this one. Great. Here we go.
00:46:59
Speaker
So you're saying there's squirrel in the stout? Perfect. There might be. It's not vegan. There's fish bladders too. I get that at the end. Fish bladders? Yeah, yeah. What I did get, so my first impression on this, as soon as I opened the bottle, it was, I got a punch in the face of chocolate. And I was like, oh, maybe we want a little overstout. But I feel, I mean, it's not as powerful as like Clark's. Let me see if you can go to Clark.
00:47:27
Speaker
Yeah, like it's pumpkin pie. You can smell that. Yours, it's like I'm getting like that almost at the scent of the aroma of Guinness with some tiny little underlying pumpkin spice, which again, like the beer itself is phenomenal. Yeah, I should have listened to you guys a little closer when you said I want to be punched in the face with pumpkin.
00:47:51
Speaker
I don't know.
00:48:07
Speaker
know that Brandon and I can't do anything just normal. We do everything to the umpteenth degree. Mike, kind of like when we first started brewing, our first Mr. Beer kit, we were like, oh cool, we've got an IPA. Let's dry hop the, or let's not dry hop, yeah, let's dry hop the fuck out of it. We have no idea what we're doing. I think we added extra hops in the boil too. Yeah, and we threw all the whole cone hops into it.
00:48:34
Speaker
Yeah, that two gallon batch is probably six beers by the end of it. Yeah, terrible. But I will say this, Clark, Brandon, and Mike, you guys all made really phenomenal pumpkin beers. And I feel like this episode itself
00:48:53
Speaker
has redeemed the podcast for doing a pumpkin beer episode and you know no offense to the other beers it just wasn't working out that night but I feel like all four of these beers have their own place just in home brewing history amongst us as friends and on this episode. I think everybody did a really good job and everybody really
00:49:16
Speaker
put their own spin on what they thought a pumpkin beer should be and made a really good beer. I mean, we really do have four different beers here that I would be very happy to drink at any time. I agree. That is my Oscar speech. Thank you very much. They're playing me off right now. I'm going to go ahead and step away and that's it. No, we, I think we all agree.
00:49:46
Speaker
That was fun to try a little bit of everything. Now let's do it. Oh boy. Oh, I don't know how that would work. I don't know if that would be do it. Okay, fine. I'll do it. I've got Tony's going to do it. All right, here we go.
00:50:06
Speaker
I'm going to take a sip out of Mike's beer, because it was really good. He's pouring the beers together one at a time. Clark's just went in there. It's in there. Brandon's now. Here we go. The second one. I'm going to get it. You know, the third one. All right, hold on. I got to go buy my beer now. And now Tony will be searching for the fourth beer as we wait and wonder where he's gone. Here we go. I'm back. I filled it all up. OK.
00:50:36
Speaker
He has returned to pour that fourth beer into his glass. And we wait and wonder, what might be? What could be? What is? Well, what is it? Oh, it tastes smited. You didn't want to talk over you, man. I was like meditating, just listening.
00:50:59
Speaker
All I taste is my beer because it's so fucking much. It overpowers Mike's stout. Don't worry, kids. Don't do that. I feel like I just wasted Mike's beer. Oh, I got plenty. I still have that five-gallon batch. Oh, boy. I'll take some of that because I like your stout. Yeah, that you can drink multiple times over the next month or two. Yeah, I don't think I said that.
00:51:29
Speaker
See, I think we're less than 5% ABV. Even better. Oh no, less than four. Yeah, but how do you really know what the actual ABV is? Yeah, it's probably close to four with the pumpkin.
00:51:47
Speaker
Well, here we go, Clark. What you do at the end of the boil, you're going to pull a little sample and put a little tube, put a hydrometer in there. And I'll tell you how much water to sugar. Oh, you mean the hydrometer? Oh, I'm sorry. Hydrometer. And that's what you use. Yeah, that's what you told me. You guys don't send it to a lab? Oh, maybe that's the problem. What lab are you sending it to? My neighbor's lab. It's a black one.
00:52:12
Speaker
Hmm. Black Lab? No. Come on. Are you kidding me? I'm sorry. That could have went two ways when you said, my neighbor's lab. It's a black one. And I was like, what? Where is he going with that joke? A little racy for the melting hour, baby. Why? I'm sorry, what?
00:52:38
Speaker
I said, what? Anyways, thank you, everybody. Shut up. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in again for the Molting Hour. Normally, this is where the part where we would say, hey, guess, where can people find you? Mike doesn't want to be found. If you want to find Mike, just keep listening to this show. And actually, Mike, is there anything you want people to check out at all? How about that? There are things that people should know. No cool shows. No cool podcasts. No, I haven't.
00:53:07
Speaker
No Instagrams. I got no. What's the other one? What? Tweeter. Is there anything that anything that you like that you think people should check out? What should we check out in West Virginia? Oh, yeah. The middle of nowhere. That's what you should check out. It's amazing. Because people suck. I've been there. It's a good place. I have to say. That's pretty cool.
00:53:34
Speaker
I saw like six people the whole time I was there. That sounds fun, especially now. In now times. Well, I want to thank you, Mike, for joining us on this episode and brewing up a fantastic stout. We appreciate it. We love that you support the show. It was my pleasure.
00:53:54
Speaker
We love that you listen to the show and give us feedback. I find a way to say, hey Mike, can you fact check that for me? And you come through. Clark, as always, I second guess inviting you to the show. And I appreciate you.
00:54:15
Speaker
Uh, your beer was, your beer was very good. Uh, much like, uh, uh, wait, can we get, I think a unanimous, unanimous about when it comes to pumpkin beers that we had tonight, if we had, it was like, we weren't going to change anything. Clark wins, right? Yeah. Well, there, there should be two categories, right? For sure.
00:54:34
Speaker
Oh, you win first out, don't worry. Yes! Yeah, yeah, Mike, you win first out. Mike wins first out, and then Clark, yeah, well done, sir. Very, very good beer, very good beer. Thank you. We all enjoyed it. But there's a place for all of us. Yeah, I really enjoyed Brandon's too. Yeah, for sure. Like, not saying yours was not good, Tony.
00:54:59
Speaker
So that's exactly what it sounded like. That's what it sounded like. No, I enjoyed. I'm just going to be able to finish this bottle of his because. Seven, would you say seven and a half percent? Yeah, man. Yeah, that's a little much, man. I'm a lightweight man. Go up.
00:55:18
Speaker
I did. Sucks. I don't want to do it anymore. Hey, Clark, how can we before, you know, I'm not even going to, we're not even going to plan on doing it for the end of the year. By the time the year is over, we're just going to keep doing it like this. But come the first episode of January, I won't, we won't ask this question anymore. Clark, where can people find you? You can find me everywhere at Clarkowski.
00:55:48
Speaker
That's on Instagram and Twitter, and that's it, right? Yeah, that's it. Cool. Brandon. What's your MySpace? Oh, boy. That is embarrassing. Mr. Rumpkin gets a bla. Wait. That's the R-NC-17 version. Oh, boy. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. What's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's my, what's
00:56:19
Speaker
Yeah, needed one of those. That was the first of the night. That's what Mr. Rumpkin said when he was getting a... Yeah, so the intention was to use that any time we asked Clark to actually fact check to do something and, well, we haven't really had to ask him to do anything, aside from read. Or I just haven't been doing my job, so.
00:56:42
Speaker
It works. Tony, where can people find you? It's me, Tony, here. Anyone can find me at... Tony... Tony Beers. Oh, we lost Tony. Oh, he came back. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. Don't worry. It's just I lost... Oh, boy. Was a lot of NC-17 stuff happening? Oh, no, no. I filled in for you. Don't worry. It's okay. Okay, great. Then just, you know, you... That's it? That's it? Brandon, I love you.
00:57:14
Speaker
But where can people find you, Tony? If they really wanted to find you. Nobody wants to find me anywhere. It is the Asa Phelps, as far as Twitter is concerned, if I'm not mistaken. And then it's just Asa Phelps on the Instagrams. And then everybody, thanks for going to the maltinghour.com, because every time you go there, you know, Brandon gets a couple of
00:57:43
Speaker
Yeah, but please just keep going to the site. It's great. Oh, Brandon, we had that idea. For people to tell you before they can find me, you can find me on Twitter.
00:57:58
Speaker
and bmdub81 on Instagram. I thought maybe you guys did that while I was gone. No, I asked where people could find you and then Clark started to try to be you. Boy, I can't wait to hear that. Oh, yeah. You know what? We talked about doing, you know, if people listen all the way through these episodes other than Mike and Clark themselves.
00:58:21
Speaker
a little bit of trivia and maybe they can win something from us. What kind of a trivia, what kind of question? You know what, what, if anybody can throw out an idea, Clark and Mike involved, what's something that someone could send to us like a word or an answer to a question that they can maybe win something from? You can also ask a question, here's like a very, well not very specific thing, but asking questions about previous episodes or things we mentioned in previous episodes of the podcast.
00:58:49
Speaker
or on Instagram or, you know, like what name one beer that we drank on Plop Day. Done. Nice. There it is. Name one beer we drink on Plop Day. And if you email that to us at Brandon, what's our email address? It's the maltinghour at gmail.com.
00:59:08
Speaker
fantastic. If you can or you can actually email info at the malting hour, info at the malting hour.com and that'll still come to us too. I think just do we'll just tell people info at the malting hour.com. Yeah, if you guys can tell us one beer that we drink during plop day this past weekend, the weekend before not this past weekend because this is you know, the Monday for Thanksgiving. Let us know and we'll send you a
00:59:35
Speaker
something. We'll send you something in the mail. Yeah, if you get the answer right. So yeah, so Mike, thank you again. Clark, Vernon, hell. Just joking. I love you. And thank you for your beer. It was very delicious. And Brandon. You're welcome. I love you, man. Love you too, man. Way to ruin my I love you to Brandon, just like every episode I have to get there. All right. See you guys next week. Bye bye. Toodles. Bye.