Tuesday, November 5, 2013

All things pumpkin...the Great Pumpkin Festival

With pumpkin season in full force, I was lucky enough to attend the Great Pumpkin Festival at Cambridge Brewing Company (CBC) in Kendall Square where you can eat and drink everything pumpkin!  It was a great event to have just before Halloween because everyone was dressed up and we got to see some great costumes.  I didn't dress up because we were headed to the Bruins game right after, but at least I got compliments on my Marchand jersey!

There were three bars at the brewery, the main bar, brewhouse bar, and the patio bar, all of which features different beers, some local, and some as far away as Alaska.  Of course, I wanted to start local and support our local companies, so I started at the main bar with CBC beers.  My first beer was Valley Ghoul, which was brewed with barley grown and malted from Valley Malt, which I blogged for during the Hyper Local Brewfest in April!  Next was the Coach and Four, made with Cinderella pumpkins out of Westport MA.  I love Westport for many reasons (school, engagement, beach, farms, etc.) so I like to try things from that area.  While we were drinking our local beers, we ordered from the awesome food menu, full of great pumpkin eats!  We started with roasted pumpkin bisque and roasted pumpkin hummus.   For dinner, I had the pumpkin ravioli.  Being the foodie that I am,  I had to try a bite of everyone's dish, a bite of short ribs, a bite of schnitzel, and a bite of fish and chips (all pumpkin by the way).  Everything was outstanding!  And to end our meal we ordered pumpkin bread pudding and frozen pumpkin pie.  We had some difficulty with the pumpkin pie because it was too frozen, but it was still good.  While we had dessert, I made it to the brewhouse bar to try the Calatrava a spicy beer from Elysian Brewing in Seattle, made with habanero chilies and vanilla beans.



After our delicious meal, we went out to the patio bar to try beers from very far away.  I went with the Pumpkin Porter all the way from Alaska.  I typically don't drink porters, but I just wanted to say that I tried beer from Alaska and it was actually pretty smooth.  Then I tried Purple Pumpkin Eater from Seattle (I think I am starting to like Seattle beers) with pumpkin and lavender and then Citrouille Pumpkin Ale from Quebec, which was your standard pumpkin beer flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc.  I really wanted to try the Punkuccino from Seattle which is a coffee pumpkin beer, but they were out of it.  So I will have to look around the stores for this beer.

If you like pumpkin, this is a great fall event to check out.  Tons of beers and good food, so how can you go wrong!  This is an annual event, so be sure to go to the Great Pumpkin Festival at the CBC next year!    

  

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