"It seems to come down to a love for the seasons, and people purchasing based on the season," Davis tells Bustle. Morgan Davis, sales coordinator at California's Buffalo Bill's Brewery - the company that created the first modern pumpkin ale in 1985 - told Bustle that though the brewery gets many calls and emails each year asking when pumpkin beer season will begin, they don't get many requests for it beyond that. Yet the beer professionals I spoke to told me that they had seen very little consumer demand for a year-round pumpkin ale that could pair equally well with a winter stew and, uh, whatever the hell people eat in April. There are upwards of 1500 different pumpkin beers rated on Beer Advocate, which suggests that there a lot of pumpkin beer fans out there, as well. really interfere with tasting a beer's flavor profile). Surely such an important part of our culinary history shouldn't be banished to the month of plastic vampire fangs (which, p.s. in the 1770s through the early 19th century - though these recipes also involved ingredients like "birch twigs" and "dried apple parings," so perhaps they're a touch less relevant to our discussion than I had initially hoped.īut still! It's an American tradition, going back to waaaaay before flavored lattes, Yankee Candles, and whatever other products people mock because women like them. Early versions of pumpkin beer were brewed by Europeans in the U.S. Plus, though folks love to snark on the flavor of pumpkin beer as a modern millennial abomination - try to find an article on the stuff that doesn't include a phrase like " entrenched dislike" or " misguided confectionery fantasy" - humans have been cooking with nutmeg for 3,500 years, and pumpkin beer is as old as the United States itself. Though Cadbury's Tony Bilborough told the BBC in 2014 that the company wouldn't sell the candies year-round because it made them less "special," I know that I personally find it very special indeed that I can now eat a candy egg in December, just like the good lord intended. Or Cadbury Mini Eggs and Creme Eggs, which were traditionally only offered around Easter, but are now available throughout the year via permutations like the Cadbury Harvest Mix and Cadbury Screme Eggs. Pumpkins, like a lot of produce, can be grown out of season now - and the main flavoring in pumpkin beer isn't even pumpkin, but "pumpkin pie spices" like allspice and nutmeg, which are equally fresh in October or February.Īnd recent food history is littered with one-time seasonal foods that have had year-round makeovers, like fun-sized candy bars and bags of candy corn.
Anyone who has seen two grown adults nearly come to blows trying to buy the last bag of pumpkin spice coffee at the grocery store knows this to be true.Īnd yet! It's easy to poke holes in any of these explanations. Plus, foods that are only available for a limited time are a huge thing for the companies that produce them - they're considered a form of "push marketing," where making a product available for a limited time is thought to "push" consumers into shopping and stocking up in a way they might not if the product were available all year. Pumpkins, a key ingredient in pumpkin beer (duh), are generally only in season around the beginning of the fall. I mean, I sort of understand why I can't buy it all year round. And every March, as I chug the last of my supply, I wonder why I can't just buy pumpkin beer all year round. Every year, I stockpile bottles for the long winter and spring months ahead. From December to July, I pine for the start of pumpkin beer season - that magical week in August when beer bottles with tiny cartoon jack-o-lanterns finally pop up at my supermarket, signaling the arrival of shorter days, chillier nights, and beer that tastes like candy. Actually, "love" is an understatement I crave pumpkin beer, with a ferocity that is downright unseemly.
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