I think I found my next career. I want to be a brewer. I recently met with Kevin Burton, the head brewer at Glacier BrewHouse. He may have the coolest job in town. Burton, a former lawyer, became a brewer several years ago.
“I’m finally getting my soul back,” Burton joked.
Burton gave me a tour of the basement at BrewHouse where they keep the kegs and also gave me a rundown on how to make pumpkin beer.
“It’s pumpkin pie in a glass,” Burton said.
Burton uses 180 lbs. of pureed pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander and honey to make the seasonal beer, which is 10.3% alcohol.
It’s $6.50 for a 13 oz. snifter.
It’s being sold now, and is available until supplies run out, which is usually around Thanksgiving.
Also, keep an eye out for a limited salmon berry beer at Glacier BrewHouse. Burton told me he recently bought berries from Shishmaref, those will be used in a new beer.
Midnight Sun Brewing Co. has two types of pumpkin beers.
One is called T.R.E.A.T., it’s an imperial chocolate pumpkin porter. The other beer is Trickster, which is a Belgian-style pumpkin ale.
Beer ambassador Darcy Kniefel at Midnight Sun says T.R.E.A.T is sweet porter that uses 50 lbs. of pumpkin and some coco.
Trickster, Kniefel says, is a bit lighter but still has a sweet flavor with pumpkin pie spices that hit you at the end of your sip.
All of them taste like fall to me.
I can’t wait to see what Burton and Kniefel’s plans are for the Christmas beers.









1 Comment - Leave a comment
Welcome , today is Saturday, May 18, 2013

I’ve always enjoyed the Treat….but other than that I’m generally not a fan of the spiced pumpkin beers…I have to walk down and try the salmon berry beer.