‘‘There was just one issue with the beer, Owens says: ‘The only problem I had was at the very end there was no pumpkin flavour whatsoever because you’re taking a starch, adding hops and then fermenting, so any flavour from the pumpkin is stripped away.’
To solve the problem, Owens walked over to his local market, bought a can of pumpkin pie spices, percolated it so he had a quart of pumpkin-flavoured water, which he added that to the beer and then carbonated and bottled it.
‘I was very proud of my secret ingredient, which came out of a can from the supermarket,’ says Owens.

Heather Vandenengel writes about Bill Owens making the first pumpkin beer in 1965
Pumpkin Power
All About Beer, November 2014