Beer for All Seasons: A Through-the-Year Guide to What to Drink and When to Drink It (2015)

As the days grow shorter and brisker, we’ve about had our fill of light and breezy summer beers and begin to pine for something more substantial and rich. It’s no wonder that fall, with its blazing sunsets and shimmering fall leaves, is the great season of amber-colored beers.

In agricultural terms, the harvest is the biggest moment of the year, when you tally up the fruits of your labor and find out if you have enough to ward off hunger through the long winter. For brewers, it’s time to evaluate the new malt and hops to figure out how much beer you can make and of what quality. It’s a heavy business, but it is a season of celebrating as well. Historically, one of the best rewards was to finally broach the casks of the strong “March” beers brewed at the end of the previous year’s brewing season, which slumbered, slowly maturing for months, dangling like a carrot on a stick as a reward for getting the summer’s business done.

The Spirit of Oktoberfest

This is the iconic autumn celebration revolving around beer, lasting two weeks starting in mid-September and attracting more than six million drinkers who consume one-third of all Munich beer production in that short time. It began in 1810 as a beer-free wedding celebration for Crown Prince Ludwig I and Princess Theresa and quickly grew into the debauched behemoth we know today. The numbers are staggering: 400,000 chickens, 600,000 sausages, 600,000 liters of beer, and tents that hold thousands of partygoers.

Navigating Oktoberfest

Having a great time at the world’s largest beer bash shouldn’t be all that difficult, but here are some tips to help you get the most out of the fest:

§ The fest is free to enter and there’s plenty to see while you wander around, but if you want beer, you must have a seat in one of the tents.

§ Each tent has a different character, so check out the scene first and then pick the experience you’re looking for.

§ Finding one or two open seats is usually not that difficult, but if you have a large group, consider reserving a table well in advance.

§ Most beer tents close at 10:30 PM; only Kater is open until 1 AM.

§ Food is cheaper outside the tents.

§ Most locals only go for a single session; after a couple of days, it gets old.

§ Accommodations fill up months in advance.

§ As with any beer event, pace yourself, remember to eat, and stay hydrated!

Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany

Grand Place/Grote Markt, Brussels, Belgium. Held on an early weekend in September, this beerfest on the glorious main public square of Brussels features more than 400 Belgian beers.

A fantastic opportunity to immerse yourself in the resinous, hop-drenched world that is the San Diego, California, beer scene. Starts around the third Friday of the month.

Beer and music festival in Asheville, North Carolina, a small town in the Great Smoky Mountains with a flourishing craft beer scene; usually the third Saturday of the month.

Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. A heavy focus on cask ales from the Pacific Northwest in a breathtaking setting. End of first week of September.

Taking place in a camping resort a bit north of Sacramento, this event is like a Boy Scout jamboree with beer and without all the annoying youths. Featuring food, talks, club booths, and a huge amount of most excellent homebrewed beer, the festival is a great way to immerse yourself in the unique homebrewing culture of the region. Usually the third weekend of the month.

I know this sounds like trouble on a stick, but if you can pace yourself, this is the premier beer event in Scandinavia. Showcasing the unique mix of brash, American-style craft beers and reinvented preindustrial local specialties, it’s a unique window into the new Scandinavian beer, which is maturing into something very exciting. Two weekends spanning September and October.

The Great Atlanta Beer Fest, Atlanta, Georgia; Downtown Brew Festival, Las Vegas, Nevada; U.P. Fall Beer Fest, Marquette, Michigan; Cambridge Carnival Beer Festival, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Night of the Funk Belgian Beer Fest, Boston, Massachusetts; Fargo Beer Festival, Fargo, North Dakota; Beer Advocate’s Belgian Beer Fest, Boston, Massachusetts; Oktoberfest, Munich; All-Ireland Craft Beer Festival, Dublin, Ireland; York Beer & Cider Festival, York, United Kingdom; Great Japan Beer Festival, Yokohama, Japan; Borefts Beer Festival, Bodegraven, Netherlands; Great Manila Beer Tasting, Pasig, Philippines; Joburg Festival of Beer, Johannesburg, South Africa; Bierfest, Durban, South Africa; Mondial de la Bière, Strasbourg, France; Fiesta de Cerveza, Malloco, Chile

§ LA Beer Week. After a lot of false starts and thanks to a great homebrew scene and a few stalwart pioneers, this sprawling metropolis is finally starting to get its beer act together. Third week of the month.

§ Also:

§ Bellingham Beer Week (Washington)

§ Louisville Craft Beer Week (Kentucky)

§ Florida Beer Week

The namesake beer has undergone numerous changes and is still evolving rapidly today. Originally a somewhat stronger or possibly even a powerful bock version of the dark reddish Munich style, it was lightened up in the 1840s by the combined efforts of Spaten’s Gabriel Sedlmeyr and Vienna’s Anton Dreher, who brought modern English kilning technology to lager brewing, producing a paler amber beer than had been the norm. This “Vienna”-style Oktoberfest beer remained the flagship of the festival until 1871, when Spaten introduced a slightly darker version based on Sedlmeyr’s reinvention of Munich malt. That interpretation — caramel and sweetish, with a toasted cookie edge — dominated until the past decade or so, when public taste turned increasingly to the paler, drier Munich helles style. Not wanting to toss in the towel on their beloved Oktoberfest beer, some Munich brewers began to produce paler versions, a style also known in Germany as export lager. It just goes to show you that even in tradition-mad Germany, public taste still trumps all.

In Europe, the Oktoberfest name is fiercely protected; only brewers within the Munich city limits can call their beers Oktoberfests. All others must say “Oktoberfest style” or “fest” beer. The restriction has never been enforced in the New World, so you’ll find many Oktoberfest beers from American craft brewers.

Large and small Oktoberfest events are held around the world wherever there is an organized German community. Some of the best ones are smaller affairs put on by Germanic social organizations and feature authentic foods such as spannferkel (charcoal-roasted pig) alongside the smooth and malty Oktoberfest lager. Seek them out wherever you happen to be at that time of the year.

A Few Alternate Oktoberfests

Special faucets are used to add the creamy foam to the ubiquitous chope draft beer in Brazil.

St. Arnold Brewing Company, Houston, Texas

Best Beers to Drink While Wearing Leather Shorts

A rich, brooding, and slightly dark version of the style from this Austin, Texas, microbrewery

Rich and malty, but a little more craft-centric than most, meaning you can actually taste the hops in this one

Pretty straight-ahead German-style Märzen from this Texas regional heritage brewery

Crisper and drier on the palate than most; a mostly modern Oktoberfest nicely balanced by a hint of hops

Rich, chewy, and caramelly, with a hint of toasted cookie

An absolute classic from a traditional small brewery just outside the Munich city boundary

This is the King Kong of beer festivals, something every beer lover should experience at least once. Denver, Colorado; dates change due to convention center availability. See the detailed description beginning here.

Seattle, Washington; early October; see details here.

Houston’s Foam Rangers put on this wild and woolly homebrew weekend that features an early-morning barleywine tasting, a mini conference, a pub crawl, and the Fred Eckhardt Beer and Food Tasting. With over 1,000 entries, it’s also the largest single-site homebrew competition in the world. Friday and Saturday, midmonth.

A beer tasting and release for this famously limited-edition imperial stout. Takes place at Surly Brewing Company, Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, on a Saturday near the end of the month.

Not specifically a beer festival, this is a vast food and drink orgy focusing on very high-quality and mostly Italian food and drink. Sponsored by Slow Food, the international organization dedicated to preserving historic foodways and creating a sustainable future, it takes place in a giant convention center that was once a Fiat plant in the beautiful city of Torino (Turin), in the north of Italy. There are several aisles of salumi and cheese, one of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, plus bread, chocolate, and much more. The best part is that you can get samples to taste of everything and it’s all available for purchase. The event also includes an enoteca with something like 1,700 mostly Italian wines available by the glass. Oh, yes, and there’s beer, too, from Italian and international craft brewers. Takes place near the end of the month only in even-numbered years; a cheese festival in nearby Bra happens in alternate years.

Besides beer, a bounty of other goodies awaits you at Salone del Gusto in Torino, Italy.

Great World Beer Festival, New York, New York; Nashville Beer Festival, Nashville, Tennessee; Wet Hop Beer Festival, Yakima, Washington (see other wet hop fest listing here); Pumpkin Beer Festival, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Stoudt’s Microfest, Adamstown, Pennsylvania; Grovetoberfest, Coconut Grove, near Miami, Florida; Louisville Brewfest, Louisville, Kentucky; Windsor Craft Beer Festival, Windsor, Ontario, Canada; Pilsner Fest, in Plzenˇ, the biggest festival in the Czech Republic; Bierfest, Johannesburg, South Africa; Oktoberfest, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Marco Polo German Bierfest, Hong Kong, China

§ Cleveland Beer Week runs for 10 days starting midmonth, and it’s getting to be quite a large and enjoyable beer week.

§ Also:

§ Maryland Beer Month

§ Detroit Beer Week (Michigan)

§ Baltimore Beer Week (Maryland)

§ Cleveland Beer Week (Ohio)

§ Atlanta Beer Week (Georgia)

§ Austin Beer Week (Texas)

Hop Harvest: Wet- and Fresh-Hopped Beers

Industrialization long ago obscured beer’s agricultural roots. Those working in the craft sector are very eager to restore this important connection between the beer we drink and the land that brings it forth. Beers that use the freshest produce of the harvest are one tangible way of making this connection.

Young hop picker, draped with fresh hops, in Kent, England, August 1937

In most cases, we’re talking about hops. In commercial production, hop cones are stripped off their vines and within a few hours are sent to drying kilns where the moisture is removed, making them stable for storage and shipment. If not dried within about 24 hours, the wet green cones will turn moldy and spoil. But if a brewer acts with proper haste, the fresh, “wet” cones can be thrown immediately into the brew, lending super-fresh hop aromas to the beer. Breweries may either arrange for rapid shipping from commercial hop-growing areas or use hops cultivated in their own backyards if they’re located in an area where hops will grow and produce cones.

Special beers are also made in the fall season from very fresh hops that have gone through the normal drying process. Hops are a very delicate crop and begin to lose their aroma and bitterness as soon as they are stored, so these fresh-hopped beers will have a bright, lively flavor that will be hard to duplicate once the hops have aged for a few months.

Sierra Nevada has been a leader in this movement, producing both northern- and southern-hemisphere versions, even absorbing a staggering airfreight bill to bring fresh New Zealand hops to their kettles in northern California. They also produce what they call an “estate” beer, borrowing a term from winemaking to indicate that all of the ingredients are grown on their own property, a rarity for breweries due to the cost and complexity of malt- and hop-processing systems.

So what about the flavor? If you’re a lover of the wild, grassy, and a little out-of-control hop aromas and flavors, you’ll love wet-hopped beers. If your taste runs a little more to the refined, you may prefer the flavors of a fresh-hopped beer. Either way, these special harvest ales are a great way of pointing out the agricultural connection that, although not always obvious, is very much alive in beer and brewing.

Can’t get enough? It might be worth traveling to one of the West Coast festivals featuring wet-hopped or fresh-hopped beers:

Smaller fests at beer bars are popping up all over the place, so be sure to check your local listings.

Best Harvest Beers

Sierra Nevada makes a pair of harvest ales, one each from the northern and southern hemispheres. Northern Hemisphere Harvest is a mix of Cascade and Centennial; Southern Hemisphere Harvest uses New Zealand Pacifica, Motueka, and Southern Cross, although the hops change a little from year to year. Both are amber in color with a dab of caramel malt richness and 6.7% ABV.

It is currently the only U.S. brewery to make an estate ale, using malts and hops from the brewery’s own property. With the classic Sierra Nevada house character, it is similar in malt profile to the harvest ales, but the estate uses a mix of fresh, not wet, estate-grown Chinook, Cascade, and Citra hops.

Rotating between citrus, piney, and sometimes herbal character, Heavy Handed IPA, with 5.7% ABV, is brewed in several slightly different batches, each with a specific hop variety and location. Drinkers can check the batch number on the label against the company’s website to determine the type of hop in the version they’re drinking.

In this annual limited edition of its 5% ABV flagship Mirror Pond Pale Ale, the brewery uses super-fresh Cascade hops that come from a single heirloom plot.

While New Belgium regularly produces the 7% ABV Fresh Hop IPA for its Lips of Faith series, the brewery teamed up with Elysian’s Dick Cantwell to create an 8.5% ABV imperial version with a complex and subtle elegance: Trip Series Imperial Fresh Hop IPA.

The Spectacle of GABF

Besides Oktoberfest and the harvest, the other huge and important thing that happens every fall is the Great American Beer Festival. From humble beginnings in 1982, it has grown into a true behemoth, showcasing hundreds of breweries and thousands of beers over its three days.

Sprawling over the better part of Denver’s convention center, GABF is an earthly paradise for beer lovers. A single admission price gets you a glass and unlimited 1-ounce samples of whatever beers you want to try. It’s a pilgrimage for every true beer lover, but the sheer size and scope of it can be a little intimidating.

Beyond the basics for any beer festival, such as pacing yourself, remembering to eat, and trying to have some kind of a plan, here are a few GABF-specific tips to help you get the most from your experience.

§ Book early. Like most beer festivals, this one sells out quickly.

§ The Farm to Table Pavilion in the back offers a relaxed, uncrowded atmosphere, fine food, and plenty of great beers, well worth the additional cost.

§ Head straight for the American Cheese Society’s booth near the center of the hall. Great beers, great cheese, and company representatives to help explain the essentials for you.

§ Stop by the bookstore and hobnob with your favorite beer authors scheduled for signings. Signed books make great gifts!

§ Thursday night and Saturday afternoon (American Homebrewers Association members only) are the best sessions, with many brewers manning their booths. Skip Saturday night if you can; it’s the rowdiest of the week.

§ Don’t forget the many activities in the hall, such as beer and food demonstrations and “You Be the Judge,” an introduction to how the competition is conducted.

§ Not all the great breweries have huge lines. Check out lists of past winners for some fabulous breweries that not everyone will know about.

§ Spend some time at the Pro-Am booth. These are beers created by homebrewers and brewed by commercial breweries and are often of fantastic quality.

§ Stop by the Brewers Association booth and give founder and visionary Charlie Papazian a big thanks for all he’s done for the sake of good beer over the years. Likewise for fest director Nancy Johnson or any of the rest of the dedicated staff.

§ Skip the pretzel necklace. You look like a total dork. A string of tasty sausages would be cool, though.

§ There’s plenty to do outside the festival: bus tours, tastings, beer dinners, and more. Colorado’s Front Range has a world-class brewing scene, and breweries or brewpubs are perfect for daytime or after-fest excursions.

The Rise of the Pumpkin Beers

The North American colonies were an inhospitable place for beer. Malt was in short supply, as New England and the southern colonies were poorly suited to barley cultivation. Hops were rarely grown in the colonies, and they did not often arrive in good condition when imported. It’s no wonder that most people drank spirits or cider. Nevertheless, there was a demand for beer as a cheap and safe source of hydration and calories. Some beers, as George Washington’s famous handwritten recipe shows, used molasses or other sugar as a source of fermentables. Almost every conceivable ingredient was used to create alcohol and add flavor to these rustic beers. Pumpkin, often preserved by drying, was one of them. With the industrialization of the country and the arrival of the Germans, with their well-developed brewing culture and technology, rustic beers with ingredients like pumpkin were forgotten.

Fast-forward 200 years or so. In 1982, a young entrepreneur named Bill Owens opened Buffalo Bill’s Brewpub in Hayward, California; by 1986, he hit upon the idea of making a pumpkin beer. While the pilot batches were brewed with actual pumpkin, Owens found that the classic pie spices of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and others were key to creating a pumpkin beer flavor, so the actual pumpkin was dropped from his production batches. Success grew beyond the confines of his pub and spawned a whole tradition of releasing pumpkin beers in the early fall.

A typical pumpkin beer will be a deep orange-ish amber in color, moderate in gravity and alcohol, and only lightly hopped. While most do contain some pumpkin, the vegetable’s delicate flavor is almost always masked by the added pie spices. In fact, the overbearing nature of the spices is a frequent subject of debate on the online beer forums, because it can be problematic from a drinkability standpoint. Most feel a light touch makes the best beers. At their best, pumpkin beers should have a complex, delicate spiciness, a creamy texture, rich caramelly notes, and, yes, even a hint of the pumpkin itself.

Crazy for Pumpkin Beers?

Try the Great Pumpkin Beer Festival in Seattle, at Elysian Brewing Company. Elysian’s Dick Cantwell has long been a pioneer of exotically flavored beers and pours a lot of his personal passion into this fascinating little beer festival, which takes place in early October. With more than 60 pumpkin-oriented beers on tap over three days, there are plenty of uniquely squashy beers to choose from: pumpkin rye, sour pumpkin ale, barrel-aged pumpkin porter, sour cranberry pumpkin ale, pumpkin gruit, pumpkin stout, imperial pumpkin ale, ginger pumpkin pils, coffee pumpkin ale, and pumpkin dunkel weizenbock. Don’t miss the tapping of the giant pumpkin filled with beer!

Scariest Beers for Halloween

Rogue Dead Guy Ale It’s a year-round beer that has nothing in particular to do with fall, but you gotta love that name this time of year. And when the beer comes in an enameled bottle with a glow-in-the-dark skeleton on it, we’ll find a way to make the beer work this time of year. Malty, but not too sweet, and nicely balanced by Rogue’s trademark hoppiness. 6.5% ABV.

It’s not the biggest fest around, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a bigger batch of interesting and esoteric beers anywhere on the planet. This single-day event in Chicago draws forward-thinking brewers from all over the United States, with a heavier concentration from the Chicago area and the upper Midwest. FOBAB features both conventional barrel-aged beers and sour/wild creations that have spent time in the barrel. Presented by the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild; usually the second Saturday in November.

Held in Hobart on the island of Tasmania, this is Australia’s biggest beer festival, featuring dozens of breweries and cider companies, with a sprinkling of spirits thrown in. Friday and Saturday in mid-November.

Organized by the American Homebrewers Association; local clubs open their doors for beginners to receive some expert advice on the best way to start brewing. Usually the first Saturday in November.

When is it not craft beer week in San Diego? Seriously, though, the week kicks off the first couple of days early in the month with the San Diego Brewers Guild Festival.

Arkansas Times Craft Beer Festival, North Little Rock, Arkansas; International Great Beer Expo, Elmont (Long Island), New York; Texas Brewvolution, kicking off North Texas Beer Week, Dallas, Texas; Caribbean Rum and Beer Festival, Grand Anse, St. George’s, Granada; Mondial de la Bière, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Thai Beer Festival, Bangkok, Thailand; Mexicali Beer Fest, Mexico; Bierfest, Capetown, South Africa

§ Portland Beer Week (Oregon)

§ Wilmington Beer Week (Delaware)

§ NTX Beer Week (Texas)

§ Dallas Beer Week (Texas)

§ Houston Beer Week (Texas)

§ Western Australia Beer Week

Turkey Time!

Thanksgiving is fall’s last blast. After that we are propelled into the holiday cyclone, and before you know it the year is over. Founded to celebrate a successful harvest, Thanksgiving has turned into a time for either celebrating — or enduring — the family, depending on your perspective. Either way, a little alcohol is a helpful thing.

The question is, what beer pairs with a feast? While the main dish of roast turkey is simple enough to match, the cacophony of classic sides, such as herbed stuffing, creamy gravy, marshmallow-y sweet potatoes, and tangy cranberry sauce, complicates matters. And since it’s a family affair, it’s not just you and your geeked-out pals trading IPA stories. Grandpa wants his Bud; Aunt Shirley likes her white Zin a little too much; Uncle Stu is strictly about a perfect Manhattan; and your loser cousin Todd actually thinks Heineken is cool. Of course, some of these are lost causes, but what can you pop open that most of the family will actually enjoy?

A nice maibock or blond doppelbock complements the Thanksgiving feast.

Despite the heavy doses of gravy and butterfat, much of this food is actually fairly delicate on the palate. This means it’s a good idea to stay away from anything too hoppy or roasty — which is also important when dealing with casual beer enjoyers. The simplest choice would be to go with the smooth, clean flavors of lagers. A nice maibock or blond doppelbock would serve nicely, and even a hearty interpretation of an Oktoberfest could work just fine. The next step up in sophistication would be to jump over the Rhine to Belgium. These beers were made to go with delicately flavored, slightly rich foods. They’re delicate enough to not interfere with the subtle flavors of a simple dish like mashed potatoes, but they have enough alcohol and carbonation to deal with cream gravy. For the main event, I’m thinking along the lines of a tripel: blond, fizzy, crisp, just a bit complex in the nose, with the added benefit of being every bit as elegant and celebratory as Champagne. If you’ve got a beer-savvy crowd to please, you could even go with a Flemish sour red or brown ale like Duchesse de Bourgogne or Liefmans Goudenband. With a touch of acidity and a rich, round, malty character, both of these function as a Pinot Noir might, contrasting with the meat and potatoes on the plate and acting as a foil to the sweetness of the candied yams and cranberries. If you’re going all-out and have a group that would appreciate it, Allagash Curieux, a bourbon barrel-aged tripel, is stunning in this situation, and not half bad with pecan pie, either.

For dessert, it’s a good idea to ramp up the beers considerably. Sweet and fat are big tastes in the mouth and can soak up a lot of malt, roastiness, hops, and/or alcohol in the beer. For pumpkin pie, I find a rich American-style brown ale or even a Baltic porter to be a nice counterpoint. If you’re having pecan pie, a Belgian strong dark typically offers complex, caramelly flavors and enough alcohol and carbonation to slice through the richness. Or, with the amount of teeth-ringing sweetness in that dish, an imperial red ale or barleywine can be a fine companion. And just remember, in case Mom burns the pie, those kinds of beers aren’t bad for dessert, either.