That great gourd, the pumpkin, just may have wondrous powers in a drink. Harry Potter and his fellow students at Hogwarts swigged the juice with enthusiasm and clearly drew inspiration from its effects. Could it be that their favoured tipple was fermented, indeed a fruit beer?

Pumpkin ale is certainly a most delectable concoction, with mood and even time-altering virtues. Its special malts and spices evoke for the palate that iconic North American dessert—pumpkin pie, with all its resonance.

“When people taste our pumpkin ale they think of Thanksgiving dinners and that pie, and there’s a kind of emotional response—it makes people happy,” says master brewer Conrad Gmoser, seated at the upstairs bar of Steamworks (375 Water Street). “It’s all about the spices. We’ll put cinnamon, nutmeg, fresh ginger, and cloves in a kettle, but the most important addition is in the serving tank, where we have like a spiced tea in a pot that we boil. You get a really nice aroma. When we’re transferring the beer, the whole brewery smells like pie.”

Gmoser has been producing Great Pumpkin Ale every fall since 1997, and his rich red-mahogany ale is spicy and strong, at 6.5-percent alcohol.

“It’s a beer that doesn’t need to be aged; it’s got a lot of aromatics, and they tend to dissipate over time,” he says. “So I like drinking it when it’s still fruity and fresh, and all the spices are really jumping out.” His pumpkin brew uses Munich malts, which give it a German bock–like character with toasted, caramel flavours and a distinctive sweetness. “You need that, as the cinnamon can be astringent. I really want to get a lot of malt in there to back up the spices.”

Such an ale is almost a meal in itself, but it goes down a treat with Steamworks’s Brew House Burger, which comes with onions braised in oatmeal stout, aged white Cheddar, and pale ale barbecue sauce. Or sip it with their caramel apple pie with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.

Great Pumpkin Ale is also one of the many excellent beers on tap at the Alibi Room (157 Alexander Street), which additionally carries the lighter and less spicy Red Racer Pumpkin Ale from Surrey’s Central City Brewing Co. Either bevvie goes down a treat with the Alibi’s lamb kifta in a spiced tomato sauce, or the chicken curry with chickpeas and cilantro chutney.

Howe Sound Brewing’s Pumpkineater Imperial Pumpkin Ale is as big as its name: a rich blend of barley malts, pumpkin, hops, and pie spices including star anise that weighs in at a hefty eight-percent alcohol. Hold a glassful up to a light to reveal its lovely pale bronze-and-orange colour. It’s sold at liquor stores in a one-litre bottle with a stirrup cap, in case you can’t down it all in one session. It’s also on tap throughout October at Central Bistro (1072 Denman Street), where it makes a fine partner to the delicious lemongrass braised bison short ribs that are cooked with Pumpkineater.

The bright character of these brews may be subtly related to the summer months when they’re made, and to their malt profile. “I make my first batch in July using several different malts—a Gambrinus pale, some Munich, and a little English crystal and chocolate malt,” says Vern Lambourne of Granville Island Brewing and Taproom (1441 Cartwright Street) of his Pumpkin Ale. “We produce 11,000 litres of the stuff in all, and it disappears really fast.”

Granville Island’s crisp and lightly carbonated ale, made with relatively few spices, is very easy to drink. The pumpkin flavour is subtle, and the aftertaste long. It’s available throughout October in the Taproom, where the pub fare is limited but includes a delicious, medium-spicy chicken burrito, freshly made by Que Pasa Mexican Foods. Ancient tradition may be on your side for this pairing, as the earliest evidence of pumpkin cultivation comes from prehistoric Mexico.

The lure of the mighty pumpkin remains powerful throughout North America, and the lore is rich. So give the ale a try. But if you start to see carriages morphing into orange gourds around midnight, don’t blame anyone’s fairy godmother—or the apprentice wizards lurking around the corner.

The pumpkin ales of Howe Sound Brewing, Central City Brewing, and Granville Island Brewing are available, or can be ordered, at LDB outlets in the Vancouver area as well as private stores.