Beer Seasons

It’s cold in Michigan.  Brutal, in fact.  My beer drinking changes with the seasons.  Like the seasons, distribution and availability fluctuates as well. For example, Bells distributes Oberon from roughly April through Mid November.  Oberon is for days where the sun is out and the weather is warm(er).  A summer wheat beer with a golden sunshine like hue – Oberon is summertime.  But, as I said before, it’s COLD in Michigan so we can’t have an Oberon.

Nope. Tonight I poured a North Coast Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout.  Dark as night. Big, rich, flavorful, warming.  On a cold night there is nothing more comforting than a chocolately warmth of a good imperial stout.  Old Rasputin is a good one, too. Rich, creamy – vanilla, coffee, heavy on the roasted malt and on alcohol (over 9%).  Stouts should be drunk at around room temperature – not a rule, but my preference.  I feel like the colder a stout is, the less complexity can be tasted.

The seasonality of beer is the perfect marketing tool.  There is nothing wrong with drinking  an Oberon in December, but a guest might think that your Oberon isn’t fresh since “that is a summer beer.”  Marketing tells us what our tastes should be – dark stout = winter/golden wheat = summer – even Bell’s Winter White looks like snow.  We then situate each beer with a particular moment, which can be comforting.  There is a feeling of relief that comes over me when I see the first batch of Oberon on the shelf – summer is coming, I think.

Seasons revolve around beer.  Nothing wrong with that.