Halloween’s History of Beer – San Diego Brews up Spook-tacular Beers

Halloween is coming, don your masks and grab your bags and get ready for some old-fashioned trick-or-treating! Did you know the history of Halloween in the United States is also wrapped up in its long tradition of great beer.

In 1620 the Pilgrims had been at sea for nearly two months and were off-course by the time they sighted land. While they had set a course for the Virginia colony they ended up in New England, and they had a problem—they were running out of beer. This was no small matter—water aboard ship was likely to become brackish and potentially deadly, while beer remained drinkable.

When the first pilgrims settled in the vast sweeps of New England, there were pumpkins everywhere. Green pumpkins, blue pumpkins, yellow and pink, and mottled ones littered the ground along with the traditional orange. Their proliferation guaranteed that the thirsty settlers would use the sweet squash, first called “pompions,” to make the first pumpkin beers.

Pumpkin brews proliferate in San Diego this Halloween. There’s Green Flash Fire Roasted Pumpkin Ale, Ballast Point Pumpkin at Sea, and Coronado Brewing Punk’in Drublic, not to mention many other great locally made pumpkin brews. This Halloween, try some of these delicious holiday beers on a San Diego Brewery Tour with San Diego Beer and Wine Tours.

This October, buy three tickets to the Beer Train Trolley Tour and receive $20 off the 4th ticket.