4 Ways Seattle’s Elysian Brewing is Leaning Hard into Halloween

Despite Seattle’s mostly overcast weather providing an excellent cover for vampire activity, Elysian Brewing’s co-founder Joe Bisacca actually credits his love of Halloween to his East Coast roots: “My favorite time of year in New York City was the Halloween parade. Everybody lets their freak out. If anything, I kind of carted that from back East, and it fit so well out here because it gets darker a little earlier, you get to enjoy the night a little bit more.”

With two annual pumpkin-themed events, a whole flight of pumpkin beers, and a brand-new hearse delivery program this year, it is no exaggeration to say that Seattle’s Elysian Brewing is the most pro-Halloween of any American brewery. It doesn’t hurt that their in-house graphics team tends to produce label art that generally borders on the goth and macabre, either.

“Elysian” may refer to that which is heavenly, but Bisacca admits that his favorite characteristic imparted on the brand is “this endearing sense of mischief.” (Admittedly, that’s heavenly for some.) With that, here’s a closer look at all of Elysian’s Halloween-centric activities this year.

Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off

At the end of September, Elysian ushers in the start of the Halloween season with its annual Great Pumpkin Weigh Off - a festival to celebrate local farmers and their ability to grow giant gourds. The machinations behind this event began with a desire to “tap” a pumpkin for Elysian’s annual Great Pumpkin Beer Festival.

“Our first year of doing it we filled a (small) pumpkin, and put beer in it, and poured it out and thought it was fun,” says Bisacca. “And then we kept on trying to get a bigger and bigger one, and so around 2009/10 we hooked up with this group that grows giant pumpkins in the state.” Eventually the desire to be able to tap one of the prize-winning, 1500-lb-plus pumpkins drove Bisacca and Elysian to sponsor the event themselves at their brewery.

“Over the years we became really good friends with the growers, and now their badge of honor is that their pumpkin got used for the Great Pumpkin Beer Festival. This year’s was 1,610 pounds,” says Bisacca.

Great Pumpkin Beer Festival

Self-described as pumpkin-crazed, Elysian Brewing was the mastermind behind Seattle’s first Great Pumpkin Beer Festival in 2005. Now in its 17th year, the festival has long since outgrown Elysian’s brewery space and is held at the Seattle Center, sponsored by charity partner The Vera Project.

Taking place the first weekend of October—and featuring one of the tapped, giant gourds from the Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off—this year’s Festival saw 80-plus pumpkin beers from around the country, including a whopping 20 from Elysian itself. (I think that effectively qualifies as pumpkin-crazed.)

As for the giant pumpkin tap, Bisacca recognizes the logistical and, frankly, flavor challenges of such a gimmick, but with the aforementioned mischievous spirit of Elysian, just leans into it further. “The inside of a raw pumpkin is kind of gross,” says Bisacca. Even though the inside is scorched before filling, and the beer is often spiked with extras like brown sugar or cinnamon, the results aren’t always delicious. “This year we did a pumpkin sour beer in there,” explains Bisacca. “Yeah, so it’s called Mr. Yuk.” This is where the mischievous reputation comes in handy.

Pumpkin Beers Aplenty

Most American breweries, (sometimes begrudgingly,) now offer a pumpkin beer for the season. Even Michigan’s Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales only offers one, noting on their website that this is in response to the fact that the running joke was that a pumpkin-named brewery never offered a pumpkin beer.

Elysian’s entries for this year’s Great Pumpkin Beer Festival were 20 (mostly tapped, short-run experimental brews,) but even in retail bottles, they showcase 4 different styles in their Pumpkin Variety Pack: Night Owl, a spiced pumpkin ale; Punkuccino, a pumpkin coffee ale with an assist from Stumptown Coffee; Dark O’ The Moon, a Pumpkin Stout brewed with fresh pumpkin and pumpkin seeds with a hint of cinnamon and The Great Pumpkin, the world’s first Imperial Pumpkin Ale.

Bisacca credits the number of pumpkin brews Elysian offers to a spirit of experimentation heralded by the brewery: “My marching orders to everybody have always been ‘brewing’s like baseball. If you screw up 70% of the time you’re an all-star.’ You’re batting .300, you’re one of the best in the league. You don’t get a hit unless you take a swing. So experiment, experiment, experiment. Let’s try.’”

Previous pumpkin offerings born of that attitude have included a Pumpkin Old Fashioned beer and a Pumpkin Malt Liquor. “Made with yellow dye number 4,” Bisacca adds, “so it turns your tongue and your teeth orange.” (See “mischief,” above.)

Scary Good Delivery

This year, on October 27 and 28, Seattle residents can have Elysian’s Pumpkin Variety Pack delivered to them by hearse, in what Elysian is calling their “Scary Good Delivery” program, in partnership with the Georgetown Morgue.

Bisacca admits that this idea came from his staff, despite the fact that, “when I drive from my house to get down here, I literally turn the corner at the Georgetown morgue, which used to be a morgue for the city, and now it’s a haunted house. And every fall FOR A DECADE I’m driving by and I’m like, ‘oh the haunted house is there, that’s really cool,’ and it never really occurred to me that maybe we should do something with them.”

This is the first year of the Scary Good Delivery promotion, but already Bisacca is energized by the partnership. “Their costumes are amazing, they’re intricate, the makeup looks fantastic...I have a feeling they’re going to be doing a lot of driving. And they are driving a hearse. This is the first year, but this is a thing I think we’ll do annually.”

Love Halloween as much as Elysian? Check out 6 Great Halloween Cocktail Books to Read Now, Pumpkin Cocktails That Don’t Suck, and Why Tamworth Distillery’s Creepy Spirits are more than the Perfect Pick for Halloween