The Best Seasonal Beers To Drink This 2023

The world of craft beer is built on innovation. And one of the ways independently-owned breweries show off their originality is by releasing various types of seasonal beers. Seasonal beers are a distinctive and enjoyable method to capture the spirit of a particular season.

Whether you're celebrating winter, spring, summer, or fall, there's a perfect seasonal beer for the occasion. In this guide, we'll take a look at some of the best craft brews for all seasons.

Our Top Picks

Winter Beers

We need a drink that will keep us warm and cozy during the freezing season of the winter months. We want something to make us feel toasty while snuggling inside our home. And winter beers are the solution for that.

Many winter beers are dark and heavy, with tastes and spices associated with the Christmas season, including cinnamon, nutmeg, chocolate, vanilla, and peppermint.

• Stouts and Porters

Both beers have deep dark colors and roasty chocolate flavor, perfect for the cold season. They both have bitter hops that will surely take the chill off of your body during winter.

The Mother’s Winter Grind is a stout with a dark, thick, and espresso-forward flavor that will make you tolerate the brisk. There are also hints of chocolates and vanilla, both tastes matching the sweetness and delectability we crave during the holidays.

Another beer to balance the mellowness of the season is the Sixpoint 3Beans. This porter is consistently good throughout, with a smooth, dark roasted taste, a hint of sweetness, and just the right amount of bitterness.

• Eggnog

If you're looking for a tasty dessert beer, this beer style is definitely worth a try.

Eggnog pairs nicely with heavy, dark beers because of its creamy, spicy characteristics. Despite their sweet taste, eggnog beers aren't beers you'll want to drink in huge quantities or too quickly.

Try the White Hag Noel Eggnog Cream Ale for Christmas! It is smooth and creamy, with lively eggnog and an exciting taste.

• Imperial

Imperial beer is a word that refers to the finest of the best. Imperial beer has a darker color, more powerful flavor, and greater hop bitterness than red ale. It's wonderful to drink on a cold night because of these robust qualities.

There's a reason Great Divide Yeti is an award-winning imperial beer. It delivers a powerful punch with a 9.5% ABV. Roasted espresso, luscious toffee, and sweet vanilla are all present in this seasonal beer. A blend of chocolate sweetness and bitter hops will warm you up towards the finish.

• Christmas Beer

What is a more appropriate drink during the holidays than Christmas beer ? Christmas beers may appear to be a marketing trick designed to capitalize on beer drinkers' festive spirits, but they've really been present during the festive season for more than a thousand years now.

Dark, malty, and boozy are the typical characteristics of Christmas beers. Spices such as cloves, coriander, and nutmeg are added to these brews.

Troegs Mad Elf already looks Christmassy when poured in a pint glass with its nice reddish-brown hue. The tastes of cherry and honey are well-balanced. With its high alcohol content of 11%, you will surely feel the heat come off your body.

Spring Beers

Spring is ready to bring a lighter vibe from the dark, cold, and heavy seasons. Spring beers are on the milder and brighter side because they're attempting to entice you out of the winter season. These beers shift us to drier and crisper drinks!

• Wheat Beer

This beer style, more than any other, shouts warm weather. The major reason for this is that additional malted wheat produces a crisper, lighter beer ideal for the spring months. Their wheat flavor is meant to go well with lighter spring dishes.

To complement the warmness of the atmosphere, open a bottle of Bell’s Oberon Ale. This fresh beer exhibits its malt and wheat grain flavor upfront. It gives off fruit and floral flavors, which is what spring should taste like in a bottle .

• Indian Pale Ale

Fruitiness and bitterness combine to make this style of beer. Hops, floral, and citrus tastes are prominent in India Pale Ales . They can have a sharp and intense flavor without being so heavy on the feels.

One must-try IPAs for the spring season is the Deschutes Freshly Squeezed IPA. This very approachable beverage is silky smooth yet not watery. Multiple hops give it a fresh flowery taste perfect to start your year light!

• Saison

Saison is a Belgian brew type that developed in the country's south. This beer has a malty or hoppy flavor and is frequently known for fruity or spicy features and a trace of mild bitterness.

The Twisted Pine La Petite Saison pours pale yellow like a beam of sunshine, fermented in the bottle with delicious orange peel and coriander. The aroma and the flavor of this beer have a vibrant funk to them. This one has a fruity flavor that makes your mouth wet.

• Blonde Ale

Known for its simplicity, blond ales is an easy-drinking beer that doesn’t have an overpowering hop flavor or malt bitterness.

This American classic usually referred to as “Golden ale,” is noted for being rounded and smooth. Honey, spices, and fruits can be added to this beer, and it can be brewed with lager or ale yeast.

New Belgium Brewing Spring Blonde is a golden ale with citrus peel, pepper, and fresh bread notes. It comprises a sweet malty flavor and strong carbonation that blonde ales have.

It's a fantastic style for the spring season since it straddles the line between a session beer and a stronger beer with a bit of fuller body, giving it precisely the right flavor for this transitional season.

Summer Beers

Summer brings up visions of sandy beaches, hot temperatures, and long days. Because of this, it is just right to find a light and refreshing drink. This kind of beverage makes them excellent for cookouts or cooling off after a long day at work.

• Fruit Beer

Fruit beer is prepared by adding fruit to beer, as one might expect. Fruit beers are a bit confusing since the base beer, which is the style before the fruit is incorporated, may almost be anything. But this does not prevent this refreshing drink from cooling you off during the summer months.

One fruit beer that can revitalize your energy during the scorching hot weather is the Cascade Kriek Ale. This fruit beer has a lovely, slightly acidic cherry flavor. It has a lemonade tartness to it, but the aging process has softened any intense sour flavors, exposing more malty richness.

• Pilsner

Pilsner is a pale lager beer style that originated in the Czech Republic. A pilsner is the outcome of meticulously managed "lagering," a step in the brewing process that can yield several varieties of lagers depending on the conditions. It is light, refreshing, not too hopped, and tends to be too simple for adventurous drinkers.

Even if they are straightforward, pilsners can still quench your thirst like the Creature Comforts Bibo Pilsner. This pilsner has a great sweet malt upfront with a little hop flavor that doesn't overpower. Overall, a great beverage to consume on a hot summer day!

• Session IPA

Session IPA is like the combination of regular IPA, pale ale, and golden ale. It's a delectable and flavorful low-alcohol alternative to a traditional IPA. It is an awesome brew style if you just want to hang and chill on a summer afternoon.

The Founders All Day Ale Session IPA is another beer to let off steam. With its easy sipping and low alcohol content, you can drink it all day without feeling guilty. The malts are wrapped around the pine flavor, which is the basis of this beer’s flavor.

Fall Beers

Hop picking season begins towards the end of the summer when freshly gathered hops are processed into aromatic beers.

The beers of the autumn season are less concerned with being refreshing, and people will begin to experiment with a fuller body and more autumnal flavor. Obviously, Thanksgiving and Oktoberfest come during this season, so beer drinking is more exciting!

• Oktoberfest Beer

Oktoberfest is a malt-forward beer with a clear, bitter hop finish, akin to a Vienna lager. The scent and flavor of toasted sourdough are expected when opening a can or bottle of this beer style.

Previously, all Oktoberfest beers were marzens, a sort of amber lager. The six brewers who have the opportunity of serving at Oktoberfest have evolved their beer from a classic marzen to a lighter lager throughout time.

An example of a delicious beer that is a great representation of the Oktoberfest beer style is the Great Lakes Oktoberfest. This is an American Marzen style that is well-balanced and full-bodied and has pleasant aromas and tastes, with traces of floral and cherry spice.

• Pumpkin Beer

Pumpkin beers, like pumpkin spice, aren't often made with pumpkin. The pumpkin taste that many people want at this time of year comes from spices added rather than the pumpkin itself.

Pumpkin beers combine the fall flavors such as ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon that connoisseurs connect with the season.

A nicely spiced pumpkin beer is the Alewerks Pumpkin Ale. This beer gets you in the mood for the Thanksgiving season and the fall weather. It has a toasted sweetness to it, but not so much that it overpowers the flavor of the pumpkin and other spices.

Conclusion

Seasonal beers are a great way to enjoy the flavors of different seasons, and there’s no shortage of variety when it comes to craft beers. Whether you prefer something light and refreshing in the summer or a heartier brew to help you get through the winter, there’s a seasonal beer out there for everyone.

What’s your favorite season? And which seasonal beer do you like? Let us know in the comments!