Several weeks back, while shopping at Trader Joe’s, I came across Howling Gourds Pumpkin Ale, released under the company’s house brand of JosephsBrau Brewing. You won’t find a website for JosephsBrau, but the beers are brewed by Gordon Biersch Brewing out of San Jose, California.

To be fair, other breweries have also contract brewed TJ’s beers but as this one does say on the label it was brewed in San Jose, that means Gordon Biersch.

Gordon Biersch is best known for its German-styled beers, particularly lagers. So the idea of a GB pumpkin ale is fascinating to me. As I’ve done with the other beers in this Pumpkin Beer Project, I reached out to both Gordon Biersch and Trader Joe’s to find out more about this beer.

Unfortunately, I have not heard back from either company. So there’s not much to go on for the origin or details of this beer.

For starters, Howling Gourds is 7% ABV with 24 IBUs. In searching Untappd, I see that the GB brewpub has brewed pumpkin beers over the years, and in fact has a Pumpkin Ale listed that offers some clues. The description on that one reads, “Brewed with 56 pounds of pumpkin added to the mash and boil and spiced with an original blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.” However, that’s only 5.5% ABV with 18 IBUs.

There is also a newer entry, Pumpkin Ale 2018 that’s closer to the mark with 5.9% ABV and 25 IBUs. Description: “Pumpkin spice is back! An amber ale dosed with a blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and all spice.” Finally, there’s a Pumpkin Pie Steam Lager with 7.2% ABV, which would possibly also fit the style of what I found in Howling Gourds.

It’s all inconclusive, however, without confirmation or details from either the brewery or Trader Joe’s. Unfortunately that means I don’t know how pumpkin was used in the brew (or if there even is any pumpkin) nor how the spices were used. So, on to my review.

Appearance: Classic amber-orange color, crystal clear and bright. Off-white, initial head built on pour then fell quickly to a ring/skiff.

Smell: Big punch of spice, predominantly allspice. It’s quite spicy, actually, with a bare underlying malt toffee sweetness. That allspice is strong enough I can smell it as it pours, before I bring the glass to my nose; just a bit overdone.

Taste: Woody spice kick—big—that goes right into astringent/nut shells. There’s too much spice here for my taste, and it drifts into vegetal/celery (seed?) character to me. There’s a clean underlying malt base with some rich cookie sweetness that could really shine, but it gets lost in the spice. If pumpkin was used in this beer, I can’t detect it.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light to medium body, with a residual sweet biscuit flavor and a spice astringency that grips the tongue.

Overall: Just overspiced to my nose and palate, quite heavy on the allspice, with no balance. From what I can taste of the underlying malt I think the base beer could be quite good. I also would like to detect pumpkin but that also comes back to the question of whether it was indeed used in this beer.