Fall Beers for Every Taste

While we hate to see summer make its yearly exit, it means that fall is on its way and with it comes the amazing variety of fall beers. As the leaves start to change as it seems do our tastes in beers. The bright, refreshing beers that call summer their home don’t leave us entirely, but they definitely make way for some bolder and more robust beers. Darker, stronger, and even spicier beers dominate the fall season and for good reason. The nights are starting to get cooler and the days shorter, meaning we all need a little something extra to make the transition into fall go a little more smoothly.

While autumnal beers seem to be known primarily as full of pumpkin and spice, that’s not all the beers of fall have to offer. You’ll find stouts, porters, brown ales, the quintessential pumpkin ales, Oktoberfest style beers, and even some pretty great IPAs and other beers you probably wouldn’t align with the fall.

We’ve done the hard work for you and rounded up some of our favorite fall beers that run the gamut of flavors, alcohol content, color, and style. Check out our list of fall beers for every taste and find your new favorite beer for this autumn.

Anderson Valley Brewing Company – Fall Hornin’: With a brilliant, deep copper hue and creamy beige-colored head, our Fall Hornin’ Pumpkin Ale has inviting aromas of caramelized malt and baking bread with highlights of cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin and seasonal spices. The pleasantly creamy mouthfeel and silky body embrace the sweet caramel flavors and tang of spices with just hint of hops that ends with a smooth, round finish. 6% ABV

Bell’s Brewery – Best Brown Ale: When it comes to fall beers it’s hard to find one that’s more universally loved that Bell’s Brewery Best Brown Ale. With hints of caramel and cocoa, this well-balanced beer has a deep malt body that’s balanced out nicely by the generous use of American hops. 5.8% ABV

Buffalo Bill’s Brewery – Pumpkin: America’s Original Pumpkin Ale was first brewed in 1985. Made with real pumpkin, it has a golden amber color, and the sweet aroma of pumpkin pie. This brew is perfect for Fall, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. Pumpkin Ale is available from August through November. 6% ABV

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery – Punkin’ Ale: A full-bodied brown ale with smooth hints of pumpkin and brown sugar. Dogfish Head brews Punkin Ale with pumpkin meat, brown sugar and spices. As the season cools, this is the perfect beer to warm up with. 7% ABV

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery – Seaquenchale: A beer doesn’t have to be dark and spicy to be a fall beer, and this is shown best with the newest beer in Dogfish Head’s seasonal lineup: Seaquenchale. This beer is classified as a sour session ale that features lime juice, lime peel, salt, black limes, and coriander. A closer look at Seaquenchale will show a mix between a Kolsch, Berliner Weisse, and a Gose that is perfectly mated to give a refreshing sour taste that’s not overly sour while being exactly what we need to send summer off in style. 4.9% ABV

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery – Red and White: Originally released in 2006, Dogfish Head’s Red and White is a big Belgian-style witbier that’s brewed with coriander and orange peel, then fermented with pinot noir grape juice. Think of Red and White as a refreshing mix of the ideas behind both beer and wine while staying safely on the side of beer. 10% ABV

East End Brewing Company – Big Hop Harvest: There’s fresh, then there’s Big Hop Harvest fresh. This IPA starts its life just like any other batch of East End Brewing’s Big Hop IPA and gets so much better from there. Big Hop Harvest gets more malt, more hops, and more ABV. Hops are driven from the farm they’re grown on and added to the beer the same day they’re picked, making Big Hop Harvest just about the freshest beer you’ll get all year.

Erie Brewing Company – Johnny Rails Pumpkin: A blonde based ale. It is a fruit beer with delicious flavor, a great nose, and the perfect poise of pumpkin and spice. This flavorful brew is sure to get you in the fall spirit. 6.5% ABV

Hacker-Pschorr Brewery – Oktoberfest: When you’re having an Oktoberfest-style beer, you might as well make it a true Oktoberfest brew, which Hacker-Pschorr’s version definitely is. This beer is brewed in Munich for the annual Oktoberfest celebration and features a malt body that’s complimented by a slight hoppy note in the finish. 5.8% ABV

Heavy Seas Beer – Greater Pumpkin: In the most worthy of pumpkin patches and during the silence of the midnight hour, the Greater Pumpkin rises up and pours a rich deep and orange color. Heady aromas of bourbon, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and clove linger over the thick white head of this giant brew. Its love at first sip as the full malt body, dominated by British crystal malt, brown sugar and pumpkin, slowly washes over your tongue. Bourbon barrel aging rounds out the flavors with notes of oak, vanilla, and bourbon. 10% ABV

Lancaster Brewing Company – Baked Pumpkin: Have your pie and drink it too! Bold flavor with a deep amber color, our big Baked Pumpkin Ale is sure to remind you of Grandma’s homemade pumpkin pie. 7.3% ABV

Lancaster Brewing Company – Oktoberfest: Oktoberfest uses seven different malts and three varieties of imported and domestic hops, as well as authentic Bavarian lager yeast. Light in copper color, this beer is full-bodied with a nice malt sweetness. 5.5% ABV

North Country Brewing Company – Late Night Pumpkin: For the fall season, North Country brews their Late Night Pumpkin with a healthy dose of pumpkin, spice, and of course this is all done late at night, when the pumpkins taste their best. Coming in at 6.1% ABV with a gold color and a nice spiced character, Late Night Pumpkin is a canned beer you definitely need to try. 6.1% ABV

Otter Creek Brewing Company – Overgrown Ale: Dripping with dank, American hop flavors and aromas, Overgrown is balanced by a subtle, sweet malt backbone that takes a back seat to the bountiful hop additions. A celebration of the hop-growing season, this one will tangle up your taste buds. 5.5% ABV

Smuttynose Brewing Company – Pumpkin Ale: This beer is a homage to the craft and heritage of America’s brewers. Recipes calling for the use of pumpkins in beer date back to early colonial times, when brewers sought to extend their supply of costly imported malt with locally grown ingredients, such as squash and “pompions.” in that spirit, Smuttynose brews this ale with the addition of pumpkin to the mash, along with traditional spices to create a delicious American original. 6.35% ABV

Spring House Brewing Company – Braaaiins Pumpkin: Available this year for the first time in cans, the “pumpkin ale for Zombies” is brewed with generous amounts of pumpkin added right to the mash, giving the beer a subtle pumpkin flavor that’s accentuated by traditional autumn spices that has a bold malt body and a nice, crisp finish. 8.5% ABV

Stoudt’s Brewery – Oktoberfest: This medium-bodied amber beer elegantly combines a touch of malty sweetness with a pleasingly subtle aromatic hop character. 5% ABV

Tröegs Independent Brewery – Hop Knife: Hop Knife Harvest Ale recognizes the meticulous, time-honored tradition of hand-harvesting hops at the peak of maturity. Troegs HopCyclone process creates an inward spiral of hop dispersal during fermentation, releasing a bounty of citrus, resin and tropical aromas. 6.2% ABV

Tröegs Independent Brewery – Master of Pumpkins: Pulling the strings of great beer and smashing some pumpkins in the process is a pretty amazing beer from The Troegs brothers out of Hershey, PA. Master of Pumpkin is brewed with native Pennsylvania neck pumpkins that’re harvested just a few miles away from the brewery, and is combined with traditional pie spices that’s so good it’s almost blinding. 7.5% ABV

Victory Brewing Company – Festbier: Highly aromatic and full-bodied, this novel pale ale delivers a fresh hop flavor like no other. Its secret? Fresh hops piled into the boiling kettle just hours after their harvest. With many more of their essential oils intact, these ‘wet’ hops add glorious middle notes of juicy, fruit and tea-like bite to play off of its lightly toasted malt character deliciously. 5.8% ABV

Victory Brewing Company – Moonglow: Weizenbocks are an amazing style of beer. Originating in Germany, these beers use German hops and wheat beer yeast. This gives Moonglow distinct flavors of clove, vanilla, and honey along with a light hop character. Much like our favorite doctor’s box, this beer is definitely bigger on the inside. 8.7% ABV

Weyerbacher Brewing Company – Mellow Monks: Belgian-style beers have a surprisingly complex character that’s hard to beat. Reminiscent of Weyerbacher’s Merry Monks beer, this mellow sibling is much more sessionable and features notes of apple, pear, and banana. 4.5% ABV

Weyerbacher Brewing Company – Imperial Pumpkin: This high gravity pumpkin ale is the mother of all pumpkin ales. It is heartier, spicier, and more “caramelly” and “pumpkiny” than its faint brethren! Anderson Valley added lots of pumpkin along with cinnamon, nutmeg and a touch of cardamom and clove giving this beer a spicy, full-bodied flavor. This truly is an Imperial Pumpkin Ale. 8% ABV

Weyerbacher Brewing Company – Sunday Morning Stout: Sometimes you want a light golden ale or a bright, hoppy pale ale, but it’s hard to argue that sometimes a big, strong stout is exactly what you need, and Weyerbacher is happy to help. Weyerbacher’s Sunday Morning Stout features aromas of roasted coffee and bourbon that pair perfectly with flavors of chocolate, roasted malt, vanilla, and caramel, and at 11.3% ABV, it’ll make your Sunday morning pretty great. 11.3% ABV

Each of these beers can be found in and around the Pittsburgh area by Vecenie Distributing