Its the last day of October. A month symbolized by Halloween and pumpkins. Not only are pumpkin patches on every corner or in every super market, but pumpkins have managed to find their way onto beer shelves as well. Much like you now see pumpkin coffees and pumpkin muffins everywhere, over the past few years, there has been a huge increase of pumpkin beers. It is a style that has been around since the 1600s. Much like the recent explosion of the IPA style, pumpkin beers have suddenly become the new trend and are becoming far too common. It is also possibly over-saturating the market. You used to have the handful of breweries who started the trend of pumpkin beers, such as Dogfish Head's Punkin Ale, Buffalo Bill's Pumpkin Ale and Brooklyn Brewery's Post Road Pumpkin Ale. But now they are seeming to come from every brewery these days.
Why are pumpkin beers becoming more popular? Pumpkin beers bring people to the good times of eating pumpkin pie, especially during Thanksgiving. Pumpkin beers resemble that experience very well. Pumpkin pie is a soothing, comfort food in most people's taste buds. Heck, they are even using the same ingredients as your mom's pumpkin pie. You have the pumpkins, of course, in addition to breweries using nutmeg, cinnamon, yams and other ingredients that are synonymous with pumpkin pie. Sounds like a pretty good pie if you ask me. So its not surprising to me that more and more people are taking to the style. But is that reason enough to flood with market with it?
Whenever a beer style becomes trendy and popular, it becomes over-produced, less distinct and mediocre (similar to the IPA style, which I will not get into right now). Pumpkin beers used to be something you had to search for because it was nothing the beer world had even seen before or even thought of producing. Now when I go to a liquor store or super market, all I see are pumpkin beers, pumpkin beers and more pumpkin beers. What this is doing is taking away the mystique of this uniquely crafted beer.
Not only is it becoming popular with micro breweries, but macro breweries are also getting in on all the action. Shock Top, an Anheuser-Busch product, released a pumpkin edition of their well-known Belgian Wit. I mean, seriously? Talk about pumpkin overkill. And I do believe Blue Moon, a MillerCoors product, also produced a pumpkin version. I hate to say it, but I believe the sudden rise of popularity may eventually do in the great seasonal beer forever. I mean the pumpkin editions from breweries have been out only a couple months now, and I was already bored of it after the first 2 weeks. Too many breweries are brewing too many mediocre versions. I can't tell you how many bad pumpkin beers I have had over the last couple years.
If this style introduces and turns consumers to the craft beer world, that is great. We do need them on our side. Its sweet, comforting and synonymous with the Fall season. But, in my opinion, if the beer world wants this style to last, breweries need to slow it down and make sure they are producing something special before just throwing it out on the market just because it is the latest trend.
Happy Halloween and enjoy the MANY pumpkin beers available!
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