Way back in 1996, a good friend and I made a trek to Oldenberg’s Beer Camp in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. Along the way, we stopped for a night in Cleveland and in our travels walked across the Hope Memorial Bridge to get to Great Lakes Brewing for a beer (or two or three). If you’ve ever been across this bridge that spans the mighty Cuyahoga River, then you know it is dominated by four imposing statues called “The Guardians of Transportation”.

Those monuments made quite the impression on me, looming over the river as they did amidst the gently falling snow. Apparently I’m not the only one so impressed, because the Guardians are a symbol for Cleveland’s new Market Garden brewery, and feature prominently on their Franklin Castle Pumpkin Spice Ale.

Market Garden says this about the beer:

Named after our close neighbor with an eerie history that’s best told with this brew in hand. This tasty ale is mashed with whole pumpkin then spiced in the kettle with cinnamon, ginger, vanilla beans, and muscavado sugar.

Franklin Castle is another local Cleveland landmark, a very famous property that is allegedly haunted.  

Franklin Castle Pumpkin Spice Ale is haunted by another kind of spirit, haunted to the tune of 7% by volume. It’s not sold in Georgia, but I got a bottle and a matching logo glass courtesy of the one and only Dave Coulter.

Market Garden Franklin Castle Pumpkin Spice Ale pours to a bright orange color with a thick creamy head and a decidedly vegetal squashy pumpkin nose. There’s caramel malt as I sip, accented nicely by pumpkin, vanilla and soft ginger and drying cinnamon spice. The beer finishes dry with spice and grassy herbal hop aroma and bitterness.

What I like about this beer is that there is more vegetal pumpkin than you get in a lot of other pumpkin beers, and the spices are in good proportion to accent and dry but not overpower the main ingredient. It’s tasty indeed and a lot like pumpkin pie in a glass.

I enjoyed a bottle on a warm fall evening in my new garage, door open to allow the gentle breeze to waft through. As many pictures as I took, each displayed a strange hazy pallor as if a ghostly apparition were juxtaposed between beer and camera. Coincidence? Or something far more supernatural? Why not try a few bottles and judge for yourself.

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