Elysian Pumpkin beers

It may not be conclusive, but I think it's good directional evidence. No one, even an ardent pumpkin beer lover like yourself, would dispute that even during prime pumpkin beer season, they are not the dominant style in terms of volume sold. (Or would they dispute this? I'm sure I'll find out!)

I think there are some semantic and other issues going on here. A few observations.

- "Popular" is a fuzzy word. Does it mean a lot of people like pumpkin beers? Does it mean that some people like them a lot? Does it mean that a lot are sold? It's been used in all these ways above. Were we may find agreement between your POV and @John_M is that some people like them a lot, some people that don't like them a lot still feel like it's a seasonal beer ritual to drink some, and that they're not the dominant beer style sold even during their season. The Bier Stein example is, I think, a good one. You probably should have a couple pumpkin beers on your tap list at this time of the year, but focusing on it is a danger. This has never been a problem with Brouwer's Sour Fest, Hard Liver Barleywine Festival, Stout events, or any of the numerous IPA / Fresh Hop events. They take over the taps with those beers and never have a problem selling them.

- The appeal reaches beyond the beer community and, is therefore, somewhat "populist." I suspect that these non-hardcore craft consumers that are going after pumpkin beers will buy a few bombers of their favorites, maybe go to a festival or a bar featuring beers, but it's not as if they're going to bars night after night and drinking 3 pints of pumpkin beer. Of course, you can find me that person that does but I assume we can all agree they are a very, very small percent.

- Events versus every day has come up but not been explicitly mentioned. Pumpkin festivals are popular. They're a seasonal rite of passage, they usually have some goofy seasonal components (e.g. Elysian encouraging people to wear orange, tapping a giant pumpkin as a cask, etc), they have an appeal beyond the beer geek community ... they're basically a big party. Fresh hop fests, stout fest, sour fests are also popular but don't have that kitsch seasonality ... which is good or bad depending upon how you feel about kitsch seasonality. But that populist party element works against pumpkin beers for the every day; you're not going to get all those folks that can't wait to go to a pumpkin fest into your bar night after night. By definition every day isn't a holiday. In a lot of places you could make every day an IPA fest and you'd still pack the bar as long as you had a few non-IPA options.

- Scarcity marketing. This was discussed elsewhere with Pliny but I think it's sort of germane here. If pumpkin beers were year round I just don't think you'd have the fervor. I probably speak for quite a few folks that don't love them, but the only reason I drink them is "why not since they won't be around for long."

 

Read this and draw your own conclusions.....or not

"Watson says those searches really do correlate with the beers we buy and drink. In 2013, pumpkin beers led a surge in seasonal sales, which were lagging behind the ever popular India pale ale by about 125,000 cases going into that August. The release of pumpkin beers put seasonals at the front of the craft beer pack by 300,000 cases during September and October, and could do so again this year."
Learn more about pumpkin beer’s popularity in Watson’s full post: “The Pumpkin Beers are Coming.”

http://www.craftbeer.com/craft-beer-muses/pumpkin-beer

 

This would apply to any "seasonal" beers....once they have been around for a few months and are nearing the end of their sales cycle....be they pumpkin, wet hop / harvest, Christmas, saisons, whatever....sales drop off markedly.....pretty common sense, no?

How is that a "memorable sound bite"?

 

If you read both links that I posted, "the point" would seem pretty obvious.....but, that's just me, I am rational that way

This seems like a pointless thing to discuss any further though.....to each their own

If you do not agree with the musings of 2 well respected beer writers who write / work for the Craft Brewers Association, then so be it....

Cheers....think I will go have another one of those "indifferent" pumpkin ales I have kicking around (pun intended)

 

I admit I haven't completely read both of the articles @BeerVikingSailor linked to, but I do have some "data" to add. Fight Google with Google.



If in fact searches are a good barometer for sales then Oktoberfest seems to be at least a comparable contributor. So, yeah, the article may be overstating Pumpkin as the sole driver. It's also interesting to note, not shown in this chart, that "summer beer" searches far outnumber "fall beer" searches and they linger longer - in September the number of searches for "summer beer" going down intersect with "Oktoberfest beer" and "Pumpkin beer" coming up. Which tells me that the trailing impact of summer beers spills over to contribute to the early spike in Fall seasonals. Summer Beer searches actually outstrip ALL other seasons from the end of April to the end of August with the exception of "Winter Beer" in late November through December. Makes sense, right, since people can't wait for Summer and then try to hold on to those last warm days and outdoor events for as long as possible.

 

I was more responding to you and maybe others that were interested in seeing the data. I definitely found it interesting to look at ... particularly the fact that beer drinkers want summer to last forever!