Post Road Brewing Company - The Post Road Pumpkin Ale

If Linus was sitting around in the pumpkin patch sippin’ some of this nectar, he might very well have seen the Great Pumpkin! Certainly he wouldn’t have caught so much heat from the rest of the Peanuts Gang. The Post Road Pumpkin Ale is certainly a testament to that creativity and entrepreneurship. While Pumpkin Ales are not new (early American colonialists used to brew it), this interpretation is certainly worthy of a creativity award. It’s brewed with American two row pale and Crystal malts and hopped nicely with both Fuggle and Willamette hopes. This special ale is brewed with hundreds of pounds of pumpkin and a few generous dashes of secret spices, perfect for the cool October nights or even with Thanksgiving dinner in November. It has a bouquet filled with spices and a hint of pumpkin. It’s medium-bodied, and while the spices and pumpkin are present in the body of the beer, it is by no means overwhelming. The beer ends cleanly with a nice dry hop character.

Post Road Brewing Company was founded in 1989 by A.J. Moran, a liquor store owner, and his cousin Larry Bastien, a fire dispatcher from Newbury, Massachusetts. Both were home brewers looking for flavorful ales and with the encouragement of friends and family, they decided to sell their beers commercially.

They named their company for the Boston Post Road, the first postal route in America, linking New York City and Boston since 1673. The Post Road was known for having the finest taverns filled with excellent English style ales.

The Boston Post Road was inaugurated by England’s King George in 1673. The first delivery left New York on January 22, 1673 and arrived in Boston on February 5th. George Washington was a frequent traveler on the Boston Post Road. The old soldier preferred staying in taverns and inns to official residences. He made notes on many of those establishments, becoming the first restaurant reviewer in America. As the Post Road developed, it became one of America’s most important industrial and commercial corridors, a key impetus to economic development in New England.

The first Concord stage coaches, a symbol of the Old West, rumbled over the Post Road in 1826. Samuel Colt developed his repeating firearm in Hartford, a main stop on the Post Road. David Bushnell of Saybrook invented a submarine called the American Turtle, which successfully planted a bomb on a British warship in New York harbor. (Unfortunately, the bomb did not explode, but the captain of the American Turtle made it to shore safely.) Daniel Halladay of South Coventry, Connecticut manufactured windmills. New England, at this time, was a beehive of creativity and entrepreneurship and so it seems appropriate that you should try a truly creative interpretation of a seasonal ale from the brewery. Enjoy!