These 10 Beer Styles Are Perfect for Fall, and There’s No Pumpkin in Any of Them

While summer is the time to stick to light and refreshing beers, fall presents opportunities of its own. And no, that doesn’t just mean falling into the trap of pumpkin beers. It’s time to dial down the hops and drink something a little different. Here are 10 beer styles perfect for fall weather, and a few standout examples of each.

Oktoberfest

One to Try: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company x Bitburger Oktoberfest
While Oktoberfest itself is winding down, there isn’t a better beer to signal the changing of seasons. Oktoberfests are malty, medium-bodied and copper in color, presenting a perfect match for the fall. Each year Sierra Nevada partners with a German brewery to produce a collaborative Oktoberfest, and this year’s, made with Bitburger Braugruppe, might be the best yet.

Clocking in at 6 percent ABV, it’s sweet, complex and full of the perfect amount of Oktoberfest spices. Considering it’s the first time ever that Bitburger’s sealed hops and yeast were used outside of Germany, this is a special fall beer and you should get your hands on if you still can.

Three More:
Hacker-Pschorr Original Oktoberfest
Jack’s Abby Copper Legend Octoberfest
Spaten Oktoberfest Ur-Märzen

Brown Ale

One to Try: Bell’s Brewery Best Brown Ale
Brown ales are among the most underappreciated styles out there. They provide a great balance between heavy dark beers and crisp, hoppy brews — especially the American versions.

Bell’s Best Brown Ale is a great example of that; combining caramel, cocoa and malty notes with generous use of American hops to present a light and comforting beer. At only 5.8 percent ABV, it’s one you can drink a few of in the fall and still have a good time.

Three More:
Brooklyn Brewery Brown Ale
Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale
Smuttynose Old Brown Dog

Porter

One to Try: Anchor Brewing Anchor Porter
If you’re more of a light beer drinker and want to dip your toe into the waters of darker beer this season, reach for a porter. Typically lighter than stouts, porters have a thinner mouthfeel and lower malt bitterness thanks to the lack of roasted barley. Notes of chocolate, coffee and a little sweetness make porters the easy-drinking cousin of stouts.

Anchor Steam’s Anchor Porter is as classic as it gets. The first American version ever brewed (in 1972), it offers more fruity notes like dark berries and unroasted coffee. The 5.6 percent ABV brew produces a deep black color and a thick head for a definitive example of American porter.

Three More:
Maui Coconut Porter
Deschutes Black Butte Porter
Maine Beer Co. King Titus Porter

Pilsner

One to Try: Allagash Brewing Truepenny
Pilsners and football just go together. The most popular beers in America are pilsners because everyone can understand them, they’re refreshing, they’re light and they have a much more palatable hop character than IPAs. They don’t tend to take many risks, which makes Allagash Brewing’s Truepenny Pilsner all the more brilliant.

It’s a Belgian-style pilsner fermented in two ways: one part of the batch with pilsner yeast and the other with its house Brettanomyces yeast. They then blended those two batches back together to create the first-ever Allagash pilsner. It hits crisp like a traditional lager off the bat but the backend offers more complexity than you’d expect from the style.

Three More:
Firestone Walker Brewing Company Pivo
Three’s Brewing Vliet
Oxbow Brewing Lupplo

Stout

One to Try: Guinness Open Gate Brewery Over the Moon Milk Stout
Stout usually conjures up images of dark, heavy beers best drank next to a fire on a cold winter’s evening. But not all stouts have to be 13 percent bombs that smack you in the teeth like imperial stouts, barrel-aged stouts or pastry stouts. Even Guiness, the most popular stout int he world, isn’t like that.

But instead of reaching for old reliable, reach for Guinness’s new Over the Moon Milk Stout. Brewed out of the Open Gate Brewery in Baltimore, Maryland, it’s an approachable 5.3 percent ABV that offsets stout’s standard roasted barley by way of cream-like sweetness from milk sugars. This beer isn’t vegan, but it’s an easy entry for those looking to try darker beers in the colder months.

Three More:
Modern Times Black House Stout
North Coast Brewing Old Rasputin
Goose Island Bourbon County Stout

Flanders Red Ale

One to Try: Brouwerij Rodenbach Classic
Few beers can offer an entrypoint into sours and mixed fermentation better than a Flanders red ale. The most near-wine beer out there, oak barrel aging and fermentation by way of lactobacillus and Brettanomyces end up giving this old world style ruby to deep red colors along with a fruity tartness not disimilar to red wine.

When going for this sour ale, a tried-and-true variant like Brouwerij Rodenbach Classic is the way to go. It sets the bar for Flemish red ales, having been brewed since the late 1800s. It consists of 75 percent young beer and 25 percent beer that has been matured in oak foeders for two years. Fresh, softly acidic and sweet, at 5.2 percent ABV it’s as good as it gets.

Three More:
New Belgium La Folie
The Lost Abbey Red Poppy
Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales La Roja

Saison

One to Try: Brasserie Dupont Saison Dupont
Ah, saisons. Where a Flemish red ale might be a bit more sour, a saison can be more citrusy, spicy and carry a earthy, hoppy bitterness. This wildly fermented style relies on lactobacillus (or Brettanomyces) yeast strains but come out with a much more pale, amber color.

Brasserie Dupont Saison Dupont is the saison all other saisons are compared against. It brings a little more sweetness than others, but remains as complex an any. It clocks in at 6.5 percent ABV and thanks to refermentation that happens in the bottle.

Three More:
Oxbow Brewing Company Farmhouse Pale Ale
Boulevard Brewing Tank 7
Hill Farmstead Brewery Arthur

ESB (Extra Special Bitter)

One to Try: Great Lakes Brewing Co. Moondog Ale
ESB once had a promising presence in America, but for hop-related reasons (we’re looking at you New England-style IPAs) has fallen out of graces along with its American cousin amber ales. But the English-style beer is essentially an ode to fall: malty, mellow and easy drinking. They tend to not be very bitter compared to hop-forward IPAs, and they share a lot in common with fuller amber ales that can be enjoyed on cooler evenings.

Moondog Ale from Great Lakes Brewing Co. is a three-time gold medal winner at the World Beer Championships and is one of the best American versions of ESB. A little hoppier than the standard ESB, it brings along those floral hop scents to pair well with crisp, sweet malts and comes through at 5.5 percent ABV.

Three More:
Fuller’s ESB
Red Hook Brewery ESB
Southern Tier Brewing Co. Harvest Ale

Schwarzbier (Black Lager)

One to Try: Uinta Baba Black Lager
Schwarzbiers, German for “black beers,” are even lighter in body than porters and present another great opportunity for giving a go at dark beers. Good black lagers balance roasty malts and chocolates with hoppy crispness for a dry finish.

Produced year-round at Uinta Brewing’s Utah brewery, Baba Black Lager is one of the most readily available in the category. It’s light in body, low in alcohol (4 percent ABV) and offers notes of dark coffee and chocolate. This blends incredibly well with the hop count (38 IBUs) for a smooth dark beer that doesn’t necessarily taste like one.

Three More:
Suarez Family Brewery Bones Shirt
New Belgium 1554 Black Lager
Cigar City Ligero Black Lager

Rauchbier

One to Try: Alaskan Brewing Co. Smoked Porter
While black lagers are arguably the most accessible dark beer, Rauchbiers (also called smoked beers) are going to challenge you. A rauchbier presents a distinct smokey flavor that comes from the drying of the malts over an open fire. Modern day versions recreate this historical style and blend it with modern brewing flavors to dial up (or down) smokiness in a myriad of different approaches.

That’s why Alaskan Brewing Co.’s Smoked Porter remains one of America’s greatest versions of rauchbier. For over 30 years, Alaskan Brewing Co. has utilized direct heat from local alder wood to malt its barley — the same technique used for smoked salmon. This limited release seasonal comes in at 6.5 percent ABV and offers a dark, robust body that pairs perfect with cooking dinner over a fire on a cool fall evening.

Three More:
Suarez Family Brewery Stands to Reason
Fort Point Beer Co. Manzanita
Fox Farm Brewery The Cabin