I just caught this thread, so I'll insert some observations I have gathered from making pumpkin beer. I wasn't making a normal pumpkin beer where pumpkin is used in the mash, but rather I added pumpkin to the wort. I used unspiced pumpkin pie filling (without preservatives). The beer needs much more time, particularly because it hasn't fizzed up yet, and also because I used too much hops (IMO).
The filling made the wort very dense and just about jammed up my pump every time I transferred. I used a lot of cinnamon, on the scale of 10 tsp or more. I have to add up the totals from the different stages. Some went into the final bottles, but I think it just settled out without contributing anything. If you plan to spice at bottling, I'd recommend having some sterile water or alocohol to seep the bottling cinnamon in for a long time.
In pumpkin beer, the desired flavor is pumpkin pie. You can actually make pumpkin beer without pumpkin in it at all then, as long as it is spiced properly. What I had done was used roughly the spices of one
9-inch pie per gallon. In the short term (~3 months) this didn't contribute anywhere near the spiciness of a regular pumpkin pie. I expect this to get better over time though, especially after the hops drop off.The first bottle I tried had a cola flavor to it. I think it was a combination of the cinnamon and the hops. It was strange and unexpected. The cinnamon was certainly there, but I couldn't say that for the ginger. I even had vanilla beans involved, which didn't seem to contribute much over the hops. As you can see, I wasn't fond of the hops.
If you're curious, these are the spices I put into a 9-inch pumpkin pie:
1.5 tsp cinnamon 0.5 tsp fresh ginger 0.75 tsp vanilla extract 0.25 tsp nutmeg If you're curious, I've read that 2" of vanilla bean equals roughly 3" of vanilla extract. If you're planning to shove vanilla in some wine, you might as well use the real deal. I don't know how you like your pumpkin pies though. Some folks like cloves in their pie, but I'd be more inclined to shove a slice of corned beef in a pie than stick cloves in it.All in all, it's a beer that will need time to age, which is code for "it is pretty rank." I don't know if this was of value to anybody, but I thought I'd share anyways.