Merry Christmas?

I'm glad I'm not the only one that this annoys. This year I am planning ahead. I have been stocking up on pumpkin beers for a month now, and will have my own supply come Thanksgiving.

 

I don't have a problem with them being release early, but i hate that when the correct season does come along those beers are gone by then. Alot of the pumpkins are already gone for the year. In other words, its cool that Christmas beers are coming out now - only if they will still be available come December.

 

I won't complain if Celebration comes out now.

But yes, September is ridiculously early for Christmas beers.

 

smh...it's not even October >.<

 

So who is in charge of these releases - Hallmark?

 

Are you sure they are not left overs from last year? Mad Elf has a bottled on date on the bottle just above the label. Check the date. (BTW year old Mad Elf is preferred by some folks.)

 

Damn, I thought I still had a few weeks left to complain about the fall beers being out too early!

 

Celebration is one of the first I usually see each year but the release for that is closely tied in with the hop harvest so it usually doesn't even ship to the 3rd week of October from what I remember. I remember Smuttynose saying in July that the reason they had already brewed so muck Pumpkin at that point was because the distributors wanted their orders filled so I'm guessing its a similar story now. The distributors seem to be the ones dictating the brewing schedule for all of these seasonals.

I saw a guy yesterday buying at least 5 bottles of Fat Jack for this reason. One bottle a week to get through Halloween at least because the employee at the counter said they won't be getting any more of it this year.

 

This is the same story heard from more than one brewery and distributor in this area as well. The distributors want to have their seasonal on shelves first so that they grab market share. So they pressure the breweries to do their seasonals early.

 

Shit I need to go shopping more. I was only gifted a pumpkin beer. I havent even bought one yet.

Cheers!

 

My favorite part of the Christmas beer time is the gift packs with glassware!

 

I think most christmas seasonals arent that exciting or particularly good. I'll drink more porters and stouts but most are year round offerings.

I like celebration cuz its a fantastic IPA, great value, though it really doesnt reflect the season or weather in flavor. I'd drink fresh celebration year.

Besides that the only winter "must buys"for me are Brooklyn BCS and Sam Adams Mix Pack.

Winter Warmers, meh.

 

That Mad Elf has to be from last year. I find it really hard to believe Troegs released it already considering they released Dead Reckoning not too long ago.

 

Yay for christmas time!!!

 

I like to buy Belgian Christmas beers, but I wait until spring or summer and keep an eye out to see what has been marked down. Some of the darn things just stay on the shelf at full price all year!

 

Does InBev the Evil Empire know of this?

 

Well, Port Brewing's Bourbon Barrel Aged Santa's Little Helper has been on the shelves for about a month but they release this beer mid-summer on purpose. The regular edition of Santa's little helper comes out during the holidays. Wait... Where was I going with this again?

 

Maybe it's because the world is going to end in December? Gotta make that profit now and spend it (invest off-shore) while there's stilll time.