As I sit down to write this column, I wonder, What have I gotten myself into? How do I address the topic of seasonal creep? How do I avoid devolving into typing “Just be cool and buy what you want when you can get it” over and over again like Jack Torrance on his typewriter at the Overlook?
Not sure what I mean by seasonal creep? Well, have you ever made a Seinfeldian “Don’t you just hate it when...” joke about how early the Christmas decorations get put out at the mall? Then you understand seasonal creep. In beer terms, it is most often marked by how early pumpkin beers start showing up, creeping farther and farther up the calendar until we get to the point we’re at now, when Independence Day weekend is the unofficial opening of Complaining About Seasonal Creep Season.
Summer is for crisp lagers and session IPAs and fruited goses, light and sparkly brews that refresh the palate and cool the body. Don’t nobody want a sticky-sweet, malty slice of pumpkin pie in a glass in July! This is what the detractors say.
But craft beer is a game of vocal minorities and market-steering majorities. Just as the sales numbers for craft beers are small versus those of macro beers, it seems clear that the number of people who complain about mid- to late-summer pumpkin beers must be dramatically outnumbered by those who will happily run out and buy a 4-pack of Southern Tier Pumking right when it comes out in mid-July. Why else would it come out then?
Some brewers have indicated that seasonal beer release schedules are, essentially, victims of the national success of craft brewing. As the brewers get larger and have more geography to serve, the process of switching gears from summer beers to autumn beers is like steering a cruise ship: You have to give it time and a lot more room.
Isn’t it enough, though, for people to just like pumpkin beers in midsummer, or barrel-aged beers or a Berliner weisse in the heart of winter?
Central Waters is releasing its Bourbon Barrel Scotch Ale sometime this week, and New Glarus dropped a new Thumbprint beer, Smoke on the Porter, last week. A friend commented about it on Twitter, posting, “As long as the beer is good I’ll drink it, but a smoked porter in the summer is about the last style I’m clamoring for.” Well, what else would you drink around the campfire at night, huh? Some 3% ABV grapefruit radler? Nah, man, you need a beer with big muscles to fight off those heavily wafting aromas. (Even though I love a good 3% ABV grapefruit radler.)
I have yet to encounter any complaints about the universally loved Bourbon Barrel Scotch Ale, and I think that speaks to the mild hypocrisy of the anti-seasonal creep crusade. Pumking is a joke to a vocal chunk of “serious” craft beer drinkers, overly sweet and lacking in nuance. In fact, pumpkin beers in general are treated with no small amount of derision. (Wine drinkers might recognize this attitude from beaujolais nouveau seasons of old.) Rauchbiers like Smoke on the Porter are not exactly fan favorites either, though they’re treated more as a challenge than a waste of time, so the eyebrow rises but not quite as high.
Drop a 99-point, bourbon barrel-aged, almost double-digit ABV Scotch ale in July, though, and watch ’em fly. This is another beer I love, too, but that’s my point. Seasonal creep kvetching is so often centered on beers that the craft geeks don’t care for, it’s slowly turning into a snobs vs. slobs affair.
My intent here is not to accuse seasonal creep complainers of being snobs — or pumpkin beer fans of being slobs, for that matter — but I firmly believe everyone has to get out of each others’ faces on this. Just be cool and buy what you want when you can get it. Just be cool and buy what you want when you can get it. Just be cool and b
