Draught Diversions: Seasonally Inappropriate Beers

Draught Diversions is the catchall label for mini-rants, think-pieces, and posts that don’t just focus on one beer here at The Tap Takeover. We hope you don’t grow too weary of the alcohol alliterative names we use…

Time for me to get a little ranty here at the Tap Takeover. Most of my posts have been positive so this is a bit of a heel turn. However, based on some conversations with other hop-heads, I don’t think I’m alone in what I’m about to rant about.

Seasonally appropriate beers. I’ve written quite a bit about summer beers, largely because I began this blog in May. I enjoy all the seasonally appropriate beers – especially Oktoberfest beers (in September and October), as well as the pumpkin beers and Christmas/Winter beers (From September through January, there’s overlap between pumpkins and winter warmers). But what frustrates me is seeing Pumpkin Beers on the shelf in July. Or seeing Summer Beers on shelves in March and April. Hell, my own father had a six pack of Oktoberfest in his fridge this past weekend!

Like I said, I enjoy Pumpkin beers quite a bit. After all, I’ve had close to 50 different Pumpkin beers S.J.U.* But there’s a cognitive dissonance when it comes to sitting in my pool and drinking a pumpkin beer. It just shouldn’t be.

S.J.U.* is my short hand for Since Joining Untappd. I joined in February 2014.

What I’ll call Seasonally Inappropriate Beer is something that’s been going on for years, it seems. Each brewery wants to get their seasonal beers on shelves a little earlier, driving other brewers to push out their seasonal beers earlier. If you look at the release calendars of some brewers, they have July as their Pumpkin release! There are a couple of problems with this, aside from the whole cognitive dissonance issue. It is one thing to do a “Christmas in July” type of thing, a few bars not too far from me did special tappings of Tröeg’s Mad Elf in July. But that is a one-time event.

For starters, this early release creates an excess of one thing drowning out all other varieties. First one brewery puts out a pumpkin beer in July, then in early August another Pumpkin beer will appear. Before Labor Day, a shelf that should still have Summer/warm weather beers*, is half full of pumpkin beers.

*Oh I don’t know it is still warm and people’s pools are open and pumpkin is a fall and post-Labor Day food thing.

Second, by putting out the seasonally inappropriate beer too early, the beers may not last as long on the shelves and saving them until the season syncs up with the beer may allow the beer to taste less fresh. Again, I’ll call out pumpkin beers largely because I think there are too many pumpkin beers now, even though I do enjoy them. Pumpkins aren’t just a fall flavor/food, as far as I and I think many people are concerned. Pumpkin Pie goes just as well on a Christmas dessert table as it does on a Thanksgiving dessert table. As would Pumpkin beer, but with the pumpkin beers being released so early (July!!!), pumpkin fatigue can hit. While I always try to wait until *at least* September to enjoy pumpkin beer, by the time November rolls around, stores and breweries are already pushing Christmas Ales. Oktoberfest beers are a slightly different story, largely because they don’t seem to be quite as prevalent now as pumpkin beers are. I’ll usually pick up several Oktoberfest six packs…when mid September rolls around.

I don’t think this is just one craft beer drinker’s opinions. So, what are we to do? Boycott something we enjoy? Then we’re depriving ourselves. It is a frustrating thing, just like seeing commercials for Summer beers in March was earlier this year. What really set it off for me this year was seeing a 2017 pumpkin beer in my local liquor store a week or two after the Fourth of July.

Right. I know this is a silly thing to be ranting about, because I can (and do) easily reach past the Pumpkin beers to grab other beers I’d rather have that are more seasonally appropriate.

I’ll end this with a confession…as much as I’ve ranted about seeing the pumpkin beers now, writing about these pumpkin beers has me looking forward to trying a few new ones in month and a half and returning to some old favorites. I’m looking at you Southern Tier Warlock, Two Roads Roadsmary’s Baby, Schlafly Pumpkin Ale, and River Horse Hipp O Lantern.