Christmas beers...in October?

this is what Im hoping to do, want to get my hands on some N'ice Chouffe, St bernardus Xmas ale and Kasteel winter at a steep discount

 

I welcome that. Boulevard Nutcracker can't come out soon enough for me. I also welcome the ever-earlier releases of pumpkin ale.

 

THIS! Most definitely.
I have never understood the obsession with drinking beer "seasonally". There's certainly nothing wrong with the idea, it just never made any sense to me personally.
As someone pointed out further up this thread, something like SN Celebration is good any time of the year, providing you have a good supply of it (and in fact to me, it tastes even better months after the "season').

 

Isolation Ale has been around for almost a month now, and Jubelale for two weeks. I've also seen Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest go out on closeout at several places, so my guess is Celebration Ale hits this week or next week.

 

this isn't just a beer thing. retail stores have started prepping for Christmas sales already.

 

Given that it probably takes many retailers two to three months to sell their inventory of seasonal beers (if not much longer), it makes a lot of sense to start selling holiday beers in mid-October. No sense on getting worked up about it. At least it's starting to get colder as these beers arrive, unlike the weirdness of seeing pumpkin beers in August.

 

soon we will have pumpkin beers with Christmas spices and then we won't know what goddamn season it is!? someone is going to post a link that this has been done before I know it.

 

the christmas/winter beers are my favorite so i dont mind the seasonal creep
burned out on pumpkin beer in early sept though....
need to clean out all the fall beers in my fridge to make room for the holiday brews....will need to drink heavily this weekend...one task i certainly wont mind tackling!

 

Way too many pumpkin beers this year. I can only drink one of each.

 

Anything that gets the pumpkin beers off the shelf is fine with me.

 

I think the reason for the early pumpkin beer hate is that I'd say a large portion of people on this site do not like pumpkin beers (I think they are a terrible fad) and it forces other beer off the shelves.
I have no problem with most other seasonals because they aren't so sweet and cloying and pumped out for marketing purposes. Just my thoughts.

 

Just saw this after I made my post - this is the answer. Really nothing else to say.

 

Seasonals are to celebrate the anticipation of a season as well as the season itself. I for one think they are released right on time.

 

Attended a brewery dinner with the Head Brewer from Sly Fox. He talked about this somewhat with why you see Oktoberfest/Pumpkin beers so soon. They have to brew it, start getting it distributed, and start getting their footprint on the shelf. Basically so that you start seeing it a few weeks before you'll actually decide on buying it..


In a couple weeks Halloween will be over...and love it or hate it...it officially becomes "Christmas Season" so this is no surprise at all to me really....

 

Agree, specifically for me, way too many plain old pumpkin ales. But some people love them so I've accepted that I am not the target market for any 6 pack pumpkin ale. I prefer some of the niche one's like Epic's Fermentation Without Representation Imperial Pumpkin Porter.

 

Good! Love them! As for all the hubbub over who releases what and when they do , it's hard for me, the beer CONSUMER to even care about those such things when ,,,there is all this GREAT BEER TO DRINK!!!

 

Yeah, saw Mad Elf, Old Jubilation, and Celebration this week, didnt snag any, but I don't mind, all the pumpkin stuff is now on sale, when I actually feel like drinking it. The Christmas brews will still be around in 2-3 weeks, when I actually feel like drinking them.
No one is forcing you to buy it now.....and yeah, all seasonals brews get slammed for early release, not just pumpkin. But it's something they are learning to deal with, for they know its nothing personal, and they know you really love them deep down!

 

This explains why I don't chase seasonal beers. Enough of out of season beers!

 

Wait... wait wait wait

Were did you find Celebration?

 

On their Facebook page, about an hour ago! doh
The other two were on shelves.