Ron Jeffries was that rarest of contemporary craft brewers, a genuine inspired innovator and mentor to a great many who followed in his footsteps. Jeffries, who died this week, founded the Michigan-based Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales in 2004.
Using traditional Belgian brewing methods of open fermentation, oak-aging, & bottle conditioning allow the influence of wild yeast & bacteria to work their way into our beers.
Interestingly, when Jeffries and his wife first named their company, it occurred to neither of them that beer fans would assume they were using pumpkins to make beer. Ten years passed before Jolly Pumpkin La Parcela emerged, deploying real pumpkin, cacao and the brewery’s characteristic oak aging.
At the first fall beer festival, people started asking for pumpkin beer, and we were like, ‘Well, we don’t have any pumpkin beer.’ Then it became a bit of a joke with people who knew the brewery and people who didn’t because at subsequent festivals, people in line would ask for the pumpkin beer and people behind them would be, like, ‘They don’t make a pumpkin beer!’”
Of course sour/wild beers eventually became...Read more