Take a look at what I found in the wilds of an Illinois grocer recently.

Look at the second bottle. That, my friends, is the first Oktoberfest of the season. Spotted and successfully wrangled in mid-July. Oktoberfests usually appear on the scene when the leaves start to brown, the days shorten, and apples turn red. I’ve found it in late August at the earliest, and those times were outliers. But this, Oktoberfest at the height of summer, is unprecedented.

Perhaps it’s another unanticipated result of climate change? Or in our

I fear that like Christmas, Oktoberfest beers will start coming earlier and earlier until we’re in a perpetual season of Oktoberfest and Christmas doorbusters.

Oktoberfest is my favorite style of beer, but that bread-y, slightly sweet flavor is tied up with cool nights, campfires, the start of school and Halloween ghost stories. July just seems too early.

I’ll still drink it, of course, but under protest.

Okay, maybe not THAT much protest, but still…

Prosit!