August is now nothing more than a fleeting memory, a remembrance hoping to save itself by clinging to one of the few synapses that I haven’t killed with television and caffeine. Some may see this unrelenting march as the temporal equivalent of total warfare, but I welcome the change of seasons. So while September is always a drag for schoolchildren and the Kansas City Royals, I welcome the ninth month of the year with open arms.

C’mon, September, let’s do this! Bring me the end of humidity and sunburns! Bring me pre-season hockey! Bring me the glory that is autumn!

And since you’re offering anyways, feel free to bring me your wonderful slew of Oktoberfest-inspired brews!

So to celebrate the changing of the guard, the graceful acceptance of time’s one-way flow, I’m sipping on Otter Creek’s Oktoberfest.

As a resident of New England, I suppose I should be familiar with Middlebury, Vermont’s Otter Creek Brewing. But the truth of the matter is that I’m not. Even in all of my beer-travels, I just haven’t sat down with a bottle of Otter Creek. So when I spied the orange label at the liquor store today, I was drawn beyond my powers of restraint.

Not that I would’ve restrained myself, anyways.

So what’s Oktoberfest all about? According to Otter Creek:

I poured the twelve ounces into a standard drankin-glass, readying the liquid for inspection. This ale is a dark, though translucent, orange. Very inviting. When I swirled the beer around a bit foam appeared, but the head is otherwise strictly nominal.

In terms of scent, Oktoberfest is big bag of sweet-malt! I know there’re some claims out there that this seasonal smells like a roasted caramel extravaganza, but I’m just not picking up on it. Instead, I get the aforementioned sweet notes, and I noticed that they’re dapping it up with their floral amigos. Camaraderie – it’s always a beautiful thing.

Okie-dokie, it’s time to drink.

Oktoberfest makes good work of satisfying the various beer-lovin’ regions of my palate. Sweetness is first to hit the scene, and she calls together all of the beer-drinkers in the area. Beckoned, we stumble towards her and hope that she’ll grab the back of our heads and smush our faces into her bosom. She does. And it’s wonderful.

But then Bite, squat and surly as he is, hits the scene. As the husband of Sweetness, Bite yanks our ankles and reminds us that only he is to suckle upon his wife’s bosom. The weaker beer-drinkers among us are startled, and they flee the scene before they can even figure what’s happened. But those of us with weightier constitutions hold ground, declaring that we will not give up Sweetness simply because Bite is a formidable foe. Thus he is cuckolded, in the process gaining a strange satisfaction at being challenged so admirably.

At this point, slight inebriation has set in. Is it the crisp September air, nearly potable in its own right, creeping in my window? Is it Otter Creek’s Oktoberfest surging from my gut to my brain-bone? Is it the setting sun, the obfuscation of our solar system’s center earlier than has been had in months? Or is it some intangible entity created by all of these forces?

Probably just the Oktoberfest.

But that works for me just fine.

B+