If you have not noticed, the first sign of fall is here, preceding falling leaves, chilly nights, and hay rides:  Pumpkin Beer.  I noticed this seasonal phenomenon on the shelves of a local beer store two weeks ago and had to grimace…isn’t it a bit too early (then not even mid August) to begin weighing down the shelves with the cliché “craft beer fall?”

In a way, I was thrilled.  I am looking forward to some respite from this insane heat and humidity that is part and parcel with living in Missouri, but really, brewers…there are other  ingredients that are associated with fall.  And yes, I realize there are other seasonal brews out there–like the many various renditions of ‘Oktoberfest’ beers–but the hallowed pumpkin beer always hordes coveted beer shelf realty space.

I just don’t get it…both from a taste perspective and from a business perspective.  No, I don’t like pumpkin beers, not even the revered Dogfish Head Punkin beer.  But at least I am willing to concede that just because I don’t like a particular style of beer doesn’t mean that my opinions are industry standard.  Beer is subjective.

But from a business perspective, were I to open a brewery, my absolute last choice for a fall seasonal beer would be a pumpkin beer; and this is a decision based off logic, not my flavor preferences.  Why?  It’s simple.  Consider this metaphor:  Imagine that you want to buy a new shirt.   You live in a world in which humanity only produces fluffy pirate shirts.  As you head to any of the many shirt stores, you notice a new one.  You go in.  The store has plenty of fluffy shirts, as you presupposed, but there in the back is a rack of t-shirts of various colors.  What would you be inclined to buy, price being the same?

The t-shirt, of course.  Even your most stick-in-the-mud being needs a little change…that’s why fall seasonals even exist.  What the purveyor of colored t-shirts did, is create uncontested market space. Your typical brewery who decides to pump out yet another pumpkin beer now has to fight for market space amongst craft beer drinkers.  Even if their new pumpkin beer tastes like the sweat of God, it has too much competition.

Perhaps this dawned on the folks over at the Bruery when they drew of the recipe for their yam beer.  Or maybe they just hate pumpkin as much as I do.  You know what reminds me of fall (flavor wise)?  Caramel Apples.  Now that would be an interesting flavor profile for a beer.  Another flavor that reminds me of fall is roasted nuts.  The sky is the limit when it comes to beer.  Why settle for the industry standard?

I myself am going to work on creating my own fall seasonal…what flavor profiles remind you of fall?