interview! matt barclay, bierkraft.

logo via bierkraft's facebook page

over the last two pumpktoberfests, i've bought a good portion of my pumpkin beers at bierkraft in park slope, brooklyn. during pumpktoberfest, they always seem to have around a dozen different pumpkin beers on hand, so if you're looking to get your pumpkin on this holiday season, they've got you covered.

last week, i sat down with matt barclay of bierkraft to get his thoughts on the pumpkin beer phenomenon, what makes a good pumpkin beer & which horror films rule.

eat!drink!snack!: what’s your take on the whole pumpkin beer thing? why do you think they’ve gotten so huge? do you think it’s deserving?

matt: well, i'm not the biggest fan personally of pumpkin beers but i can see why it's such a popular thing because they taste very different. they're spiced pretty heavily and a lot of people who don't ordinarily drink beer tend to really like them. like, my wife's crazy about them and she doesn't really drink beer. i think a large part of it is that you get all these flavors you don't normally see in beer like all that spice and they're normally sweeter so they're more accessible than IPAs & pale ales.

i think, with the fall season, it's not just the pumpkin beers. it's the oktoberfests and the harvest beers, the wet hop beers, that tend to sell better. i think as people are going back to school and winding down the summer, for whatever reason fall has this really kind of powerful pull on people. maybe it's just because fall's one of the times when new york is actually nice to live in but that's when people start craving these sort of things so it's the one time when it's a real priority to make sure that all the fall seasonal beers are in. during the summer, people will get pilsners or whatever...because it's summer they tend to sell better but the fall ones people tend to go crazy for because they're so different than most beers and also, just...people are crazy about them.

E: do you find that people go more for the spiced pumpkin beers or the ones that have a pumpkin/squash flavor to them?

M: there are very few that really taste like pumpkin because most of them are mostly made with pumpkin puree that came out of a can somewhere and it doesn't really taste like much. i really like the elysian night owl because they use pumpkin seeds so it has an actual part of a pumpkin that tastes like something in it. that one does pretty well but the spice is always the big draw, the ones that people go nuts about like the shipyard, the pumking (from southern tier) and the dogfish punkin are all really spicy & that's the real main event, i think. the pumpkin part is nice & everything but really, it's an excuse to have nutmeg & allspice in your beer.

E: what pumpkin beers would you recommend?

M: i really like the night owl. i just had the sixpoint (autumnation) for the first time and i was really worried about it because it's tying two of the fall gimmicks (pumpkin & wet hops) into one beer so i thought it might be gimmicky but it's actually really well-balanced and i think the hop character plays really nice with the spice character. you get spicy hops & spicy spice & it's all really well put together, so i actually like that one a lot. it's a good new one. i also really like the greenport harbor leaf pile which is draft only and i think there's no more left in new york city for now. they're brewing another batch but that one's really nice. also, the dogfish head.

i think a lot of the ones that use pumpkin puree, it's a lot of added sugars and you lose a lot of body because it's really easy to ferment and you get this kinda thin liquid and then you've got thin beer with a lot of spice. you need more body to carry the spice. the leaf pile, the dogfish head and although i'm definitely not crazy about the southern tier & the weyerbacher (imperial pumpkin ale), they've all got this body that's tied together in a cleaner, more holistic package than this thing where it's this really thin ale with all of the spices in it...a "spice soda."

E: and finally, what would you say are your favorite horror films?

M: i'm a big fan of most dario argento movies and suspiria is definitely my favorite out of all those. also john carpenter for the thing. those two.

bierkraft is available for all your pumpktoberfest needs at 192 5th ave in brooklyn.