A pumpkin beer that's worth the wait!

Here at Tröegs, we started working with local ingredients back in 2002. And now – more than 20 years later – we’re using more than we ever imagined possible!

Every year, we brew with a few tons of Pennsylvania grain. Our holiday favorite Mad Elf is sweetened with 25,000 pounds of local honey. We even source a cornucopia of seasonal ingredients for our Snack Bar from farms and producers in our own backyard.

And every fall, when pumpkin beer season arrives, we brew Master of Pumpkins with 3,000 pounds of pumpkins grown and harvested from right here in Pennsylvania.

It takes a long time to plant, raise, pick, slice, clean and roast all those crooked beauties, but if you ask us, Master of Pumpkins is worth the wait.

“To us, a pumpkin beer should have pumpkins, and fortunately they grow really well in Pennsylvania,” says brewmaster and co-founding brother John Trogner. “We think our fans appreciate this beer’s connection to local agriculture.”

Pumpkin planting in Pennsylvania happens early in the year… when Mother Nature says it’s OK, of course. For Master of Pumpkins, we use longneck pumpkins, a hearty heirloom variety that tastes similar to butternut squash and can weigh up to 20 pounds each.

Then, around late August or early September, we get a delivery of ripe pumpkins, and our kitchen team swings into action, de-stemming and roasting every last one of them right in our Snack Bar kitchen.

Finally, we purée every last gourd and the whole lot goes right in our mash tun at the start of the brewing process. It’s a labor of love and brewery-wide effort to bring this beer to life!

Once all of the pumpkins have been processed, it’s time to bring in some time-honored flavors of the fall season. Our spice mix lends notes of nutmeg, cinnamon and clove with a hint of vanilla, and a Belgian yeast strain amplifies the dried spice notes. And it’s all layered atop a backbone of caramel malt.

Look for Master of Pumpkins on draft and in 16-oz. cans everywhere our beer is sold starting Monday, September 23. Don’t forget to use our Brew Finder to track some down near you!