Elysian The Great Pumpkin Imperial Pumpkin Ale

Review Date 9/29/2018  By John Staradumsky

  Style: Pumpkin Ale   Brewery: Elysian   Country: USA   State: Washington   $ Per OZ: $.36 (B)   ABV: 8.4%

I’ll tell you this: They sure do love their pumpkin beer at Seattle’s Elysian Brewing Company. Not only do they have a large number of Pumpkin beers, but they also have a GPBF each year: Great Pumpkin Beer Festival. This year, it’s October 5^th , and 6^th, about a week away as I type. Here’s some of the cool beers they’ll be pouring:

Night Owl, Punkuccino, Great Pumpkin, Dark Knife, Gourdfather, Black Galleons, Goblin Party, Old Fashioned, Rye Barrel Old Fashioned, Dark o' the Moon, Rosemary's Baby, Cursed Hearse, Gourdon's Gin Pumpkin Ale, Ursa Orange Berliner Weisse, Muffintop, Mountain, Stout, Saigon Horror Biere de Gourde, Purple Dinghy Brett Table Stout, Ragnaroggen Roggenbier, Punk-a-Rita, 50 Shades of Green Wet Hop, Kama Citra Wet Hop, Straddle Strata Wet Hop, Bloktoberhead... and more!!!

That’s from the GPBF homepage, on the Elyisan website. But it gets better. Here’s a really cool thing they do:

For those who haven’t been to GPBF – during each session, we have a giant, several-hundred pound pumpkin that is scooped, scorched, filled with pumpkin beer, sealed, conditioned, and then tapped at the fest for all to enjoy.

Yeah. Now that’s cool. In the past few years I’ve enjoyed Elysian Punkuccino Coffee Pumpkin Ale and their Night Owl Pumpkin Ale; last week I picked up bombers of Dark Knife, a pumpkin Schwarzbier, and the beer I’m here to tell you about this evening, Elysian The Great Pumpkin Imperial Pumpkin Ale.

On the label, Elysian says about The Great Pumpkin:

The Great Pumpkin is the world’s first imperial pumpkin ale! It’s packed with pumpkin and roasted pumpkin seeds, and spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice.

On the website, Elysian sites Pale, Munich, Carahell, C-20, and C-45 malts as well as Magnum hops. Hops however are for bittering, and never really the focal point of a pumpkin ale. Pumpkin and spice are after all! The Great Pumpkin has an alcohol content of 8.4% by volume with 20 IBUs. I paid $7.99 for a bomber at Kroger.

Elysian The Great Pumpkin Imperial Pumpkin Ale pours to a bright orange color with a thick fluffy head and a rich spicy pumpkin pie nose. Taking a sip, the beer offers notes of candied fruit, squashy pumpkin, toasted pumpkin seeds, Allspice, robust cinnamon, caramel, pungent nutmeg, and drying allspice. It finishes dry with spice and warming alcohol.

A big beautiful alcoholic slice of pumpkin pie in a glass, The Great Pumpkin Imperial Pumpkin Ale is a beer Linus would be proud of. It’s already one of my favorite pumpkin ales, and you can be sure I’ll be back for more.