My latest article for The Bulletin that came out last week embraced the changing of the seasons with a look at some of the harvest themed beers and ciders of autumn.

The beginning of autumn heralds shorter, cooler days, changing colors of the leaves, apple cider, pumpkin patches, and the appearance of what I consider harvest beers. These are the seasonal beers (and ciders) brewed to mark the transition into fall, and encompass a range of styles and possibilities.

It’s one of my favorite beer times of the year, with a cornucopia of options to choose among.

I highlighted three different styles with an example of each, starting with Oktoberfest. I chose the new Dummerberg Oktoberfest Lager from Immersion Brewing to spotlight the German fall/harvest folk festival (pictured above). It’s a nice example to start with, full of lush malt aromatics and is super drinkable.

Avid Cider recently released an imperial cider, Golden Delish, which just smells like fresh-squeezed apple juice in the middle of an orchard and tastes like it too; it’s 8.5% ABV and rich and semi-dry. This is apple picking season, so it fit right into the theme nicely.

And of course you know I could talk about harvest beers without mentioning fresh hops! There are so many fresh hop beers available right now, it was hard to choose one, but ultimately I went with Out On Bale Fresh Hop Imperial IPA from Boneyard Beer, which had just been released before the article came out. It was brewed with 400 pounds of fresh Simcoe hops and is 8.4% ABV. I’ll post a review of it with my other fresh hop round ups but you can read more in the article right now.