When you think of Auburn Agriculture, you might picture its “cow college” roots — rows of crops, greenhouses and students with their hands in the soil. But what about beer? This fall, a team from Auburn’s Horticulture Department partnered with a local brewery in Auburn to craft a truly local pumpkin beer, made with both hops and pumpkins grown by students and faculty.
The collaboration, led by Dr. Andre Luiz Biscaia Ribeiro da Silva along with graduate student Alex Lahue, is part of Auburn’s expanding research into Alabama hop production. We sat down with the team behind the brew to learn more.
When Dr. da Silva arrived at Auburn in 2021, he discovered an old hop yard and saw big potential. Thanks to grants from Auburn and the USDA, he was able to reinitiate hop research and install a new hop yard.
(Hops are the plants that add flavor and bitterness to beer! They’re responsible for giving beer tastes like citrus, pine, floral or spice.)
Since then, Auburn’s Horticulture team has been cultivating three hop varieties — Chinook, Magnum and Cascade — while studying their unique profiles.
Soon after, Dr. da Silva learned about the opening of New Realm Brewing, an Atlanta-based brewery with a new taproom located right between the Tony and Libba Rane Culinary Science Center and Hey Day Market on South College Street.
He reached out to General Manager Drew Kostic with an idea: brew a beer made entirely from Auburn-grown ingredients.
“My goal was always to have a tap at New Realm featuring a beer made from our local production. We started with hops, and then came the idea to add pumpkins for a seasonal beer.
I approached [Drew] and told him that we can provide you with the hops and the pumpkin. So he loved the idea and it took off from there.”
Graduate student Alex Lahue, Dr. Andre da Silva and a team of students harvested more than 270 pounds of fresh hops. (Auburn Horticulture)
Graduate student Alex Lahue played a key role in bringing the project to life — from harvesting hops and pumpkins to helping prepare the pumpkin purée with faculty member Dr. Rodrigues, Auburn’s food safety specialist.
Thus, Pine Hill Pumpkin Amber was born! The name comes from Auburn’s oldest cemetery, established in 1837 on what is now Armstrong Street.
Lahue, who graduates this fall, said the project showcases how diverse careers in agriculture can be.
“I graduated from Auburn University in 2022 with my bachelor’s in horticulture and decided to stick around for my master’s. I have a wide array of interests in the field, including crop management, public gardens, extension, outreach and more.
Before my current research project with hops, I didn’t know anything about the crop or the brewing industry. I have surprisingly fallen in love with hops, between their unique growth habits and sticky cones, and there is no better feeling than being able to taste the hops that I cultivated over a long growing season in a carefully crafted brew.”
Since planting the hop plantlets in March of 2024 in Mobile, Alabama, Alex dedicated herself to the crop management, data collection, harvesting, drying + packaging of hops. (Alex Lahue)
While brewing might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of horticulture, Dr. da Silva says it’s all part of the department’s broad mission.
“In horticulture, we have specialists for everything all the way from microbiology of fruits and vegetables to the physiology of the crop, including production, management, landscaping and flowering as well as things like food safety.
Brewing is just one of the many ways agriculture stretches into everyday life.”
Whether it’s crafting the perfect pumpkin beer or designing sustainable landscapes, Auburn’s College of Agriculture continues to show that the future of farming is as innovative — and flavorful — as ever.
