Here we are. Over a week into October and it's finally starting to feel like fall. Sure the sun's shining, but I could see my breath when I took Lottie out this morning and it's a steady 68° in my house without the air running.

What better way to grace the triumphant return of the best season than by breaking the seal on Spooky Finger Puppet Ghost Month 2025? To christen the pumpkin season on the blog, we're doing up Wolf's Ridge's Pumpkin Spice Daybreak. Let's see how it's drinking.

Before anyone says otherwise, I am doing a Märzen this Oktoberfest season. Hell, that's this post is about! See? Last time I said I was more of a Märzen guy, so here it is. Märzen.

The specific Märzen we're looking at today is Wolf's Ridge's Oktoberfest. It's been a few years since they've graced the blog. I know they can do great stouts. How do they handle this fall staple?

This is one of those incredibly rare occurrences where the weather's bad enough that my employer shutters its offices for the day so its employees can stay home and safe. Right now, we're getting pummeled with freezing rain, which will last until this evening when it turns to snow. The power's still on--truth be told, I don't think we'll lose it (but we're covered with firewood and bottled water if we do).

After a lazy morning I'm now welcoming an equally lazy afternoon with a bottle of Wolf's Ridge's Dire Wolf Coffee Joy, which I'm sipping before a roaring blaze in our wood-burning stove. I'm so happy to be indoors right now.

Okay. Michelle and I are taking a break from our Christmas cookie prep (everything's baked, we just need to whip up the frosting and slather it on the cookies), which means it's officially beer o'clock.

Today's beer is the second part of Wolf Ridge's 2020 Holiday Series: Spiced Date Dire Wolf. My house is currently Christmas scented (spruce from our live tree, sugar cookies from our baking session, and a little smoke from the fire blazing away happily in our buck stove), so I'm stoked on another Christmassy beer.

This beer is the one I'd originally lined up to drink for this year's Christmas in July. See, shortly after Christmas last year, I found myself (as one so often does) in a local bottleshop. They had Wolf's Ridge's Holiday Series two-pack discounted to $15 or $20. I snagged one, figuring I'd drink a bottle for this Christmas and the other for X-mas in July.

Well, as you might know, I drank something else, something a little more unexpected, for that July post. Instead, I figured I'd sit on both beers until this December. Since it's this December now, and I have a weekend off and both beers still to drink, the time's come to break into that pack. Here's the first: Gingerbread Cookie Clear Sky.

We're in a bright spot of sunshine between rain and thunderstorms here on January 1, 2021. I lack the ability to see the future, but I'm willing to go on record saying that this is probably how the good moments of this year will shape up to be: bright bits of warm, shining light between less than favorable moments. My bio (over on the right of this text) says I'm a purist. I'm also a realist. Life's not all sunny days, but that's all the more reason to savor them while they're around.

Take today's weather, for an exact example. When I think of January, I think of cold, grey skies with snow or ice falling and covering the ground. This unseasonably warm weather is exceptional. It's giving me hope that the year'll be better than last, or, at least, that we'll work to make it so. 

I'm dipping a bit to deep here. I know that. So, let's shift focus. This is a day for celebrating, that's what I'm trying to get at. I intend to celebrate, and I'll be doing that with a personal whale that I managed to track down a two month's back: Wolf's Ridge's Dire Wolf.