Pumpkin Ale - less than a success

Well, most pumpkin ales are less than a success...

 

This should be in the homebrewing forum where you will find lots of folks who can help. I am telling you this because I love pumpkin beer still and I want yours to come out good. =)

 

Your beer is flat because you didn't use enough priming sugar and / or there is an insufficient amount of viable yeast to convert sugar into co2.

Body akin to wine is because it's flat and / or the beer lacks a sufficient amount of dextrin or other things that people perceive as body.

Less flavorful than expected is because the recipe lacks gusto.

Posting your recipe and brewing process will likely provide less speculative answers.

 

It's also possible that your beer is flat because you haven't given it enough time to carbonate.

 

Welcome to the BA site, Flave, and to this great hobby if you are a newbie. You can ignore Lucular's comment (and my Liking it) because we like to keep a sense of humor around here.

@Brew_Betty is right on with her reply. A little bit more info will also help us to help you. Some more info about your recipe (beer style, all-grain or extract), yeast used, how long in primary, your reason for using a secondary fermentor and how long in there, batch size, how much priming sugar, how long in the bottles and the temp where the bottles have been conditioning, and did you taste the beer before bottling and was it sweet, real dry or a good beer taste?

 

Well, that's a hell of an opinion right there! I guess not all beers are for everybody!

 

Actually I do like some pumpkin ales (Pumking, Heavy Seas Great'ER Pumpkin, Selin's Grove Pumpkin Ale). However, most pumpkin ales are pretty disappointing. And to @Mothergoose03 's point, yes, my post was admittedly facetious....sorry!

 

Keep digging.

 

As said above, most pumpkin beers suck. You have to find what you like. The one you like and the one I like are probably very different. I don't like that most are cloyingly sweet and/or pumpkin pie spice bombs. The good one that I've made, and the ones I like are a great beer underneath. Add half the spice you think you'll need and add a little more before bottling if you need to.

1.080 to 1.009 should taste like wine. That's a really high attenuation. You'll more likely want something with a FG in the teens. Did you get a measurement on IBUs? Without seeing a recipe, I'm assuming that this is a pale beer and there's no complexity to it.

If you want a pale or amber beer that has pumpkin spice in it, you have to keep it balanced. I find that spicing your beer after your boil is the best way to make any style of pumpkin beer.

Porters and Browns are GREAT styles for the spice because they bring sweetness. It's usually maltiness that can be complex and won't be overtaken by the spice. When you get into chocolate malt, roasted barley, and black malt, you really get away from the cloying sweet beers.