Seasonal Beer Rules

I tend to buy the seasonals early because there's only about one store in my town that carries all of them, and they sell out fast. Also, the reason they are on the shelves so early is market share ... money. If you are a brewer and you know that your competition is selling their Oktoberfest before you, then it's only natural that you play the game to get a piece of the pie. So yes, i buy them early, but I sure as hell don't drink them early.

 

The weather is pretty fall like tonight in Ohio, so I'm enjoying some Oktoberfest and a slice of pumpkin pie.

 

Who cares? Drink what you want, when you want.

 

No Oktoberfests until Labor Day Night.
No Christmas beers until after midnite on Thanksgiving.
No spring beers until March 1.
No summer beers until Friday of Memorial Day weekend.

 

I drink the seasonal releases when they come out, we don't have much seasonality, October is hotter than July and August anyway. Enjoying some Sam Adams Octoberfest tonight. I would like to be able to try a Winter Warmer when it was actually snowing or at least colder than 45F, that would be pretty cool. Unfortunately, it snows around here about once a century. My dad got to enjoy some snow in Long Beach back in 1949.

 

First off I drink what I like. The seasons never has any effect of my drinking of beer. I have drank many Oktoberfest beers because I like the malt profile. I drank many of them in May....as for fruit beers yuck and pumpkin double yuck......some can be decent but its a case by case thing....

 

I'll buy the first fresh six-pack of Celebration Ale I see, because I like it. Given the dry hopping I may do a side-by-side comparison later in the season if I find another fresh batch that was bottled four to six weeks later--to see if I can detect a drop-off.

 

I think outside temp has more of an effect on me than actual date... that being said, Pumpkinhead flies off the shelves no matter what it's like outside. Also, tried the first Shipyard Smashed Pumpkin of the year last night... after I swallowed I would have sworn I had just eaten a piece of pumpkin pie. It's amazing what they can do with extracts these days, considering pumpkin growing season is still a ways away!

 

Not a big fan of seasonal beers marketed/targeted for out of season. I was at a party recently where the hostess bought a Sam Adams summer variety case. It seemed appropriate, being the middle of the summer and a hot & humid day. Yet, most of the beers were well beyond the enjoy-before date notched on bottles. While they may be enjoyable in April, why call them summer beers?

 

Gee, I hope they've started growing already or else there isn't going to be much of a harvest this year!

 

Seasons? In the PNW we get two, The cold and rainy one and the one with a little less rain. Therefore I don't care much when a beer is released, if it's good I'll buy it.

 

I'm more laisse faire. My only real rules are that i wont drink a seasonal more than one season out (no more Dig for me, i suppose) and that if a seasonal moves into year round I tend to drink a lot less (not really a rule, jsut an observation mostly regarding Noble Pils and a local brown ale) Though i LOVE pumpkin ales, i have a hard time drinking them when it's still 95 degrees out. I wish brewers would wait about a month longer than they do to release, but hey I'm writing all this as i drink an SN Tumbler.

 

I promised myself I wouldn't have any pumpkin beer until I was watching the first football game of the season. Then today it was chilly, overcast and rainy and I basically just said "eff it, might as well be September already" and had an Ichabod. Basically, I'm a push over...

 

My seasonal beer rules:
Fall: avoid pumpkin ales. Yech. Ditto Oktoberfests. Too malty.
Winter: don't drink winter warmers. Spices belong in food, not beer.
Spring: avoid Bocks & Doppelbocks. Too malty.
Summer: Let others drink the witbiers and shandys. Fruit doesn't belong in beer, either in liquid form or as a slice on the side of the glass.

 

I used to make myself wait until the first football weekend to enjoy any Oktoberfest or Pumpkin beers. then I find myself scrambling to drink as much as I can before they disappear. So, this year, I've decided to be more welcoming - had my first fall seasonal last night (a SA Oktoberfest at a restaurant w/ limited options). It certainly doesn't feel like fall here in DC, but I guess I can fake it.

Fall is the only season that bothers me w/ seasonals - the transition is just too abrupt. I have no problem starting to drink winter beers in October.

 

most of the seasonals are gone by the time the actual season arrives

 

One rule for me: drink them.

 

After Halloween would probably be an appropriate time for Christmas decorations. I went to Big Lots last week and they already had them out. I think Target was setting up some Christmas displays, too, to replace their "back to school" stuff.

 

I'm a sucker for fall beers, especially pumpkin beers, so I start grabbing them when I start seeing them. If that will eventually be June, so be it.

 

Oktoberfest beers are something I'd drink year-round if I could, so I usually buy some as early as see it available. I do wait a little while to drink any pumpkin beers, and then I usually stock up on them and drink them in December and January.