Pumpkin spice latte season began at a well-known coffee chain in late August. Thanks to the phenomenon known as pumpkin creep — the earlier and earlier arrival of pumpkin-flavored beverages each year — pumpkin beer season starts earlier now too. But that’s not a bad thing: beers made with pumpkin, and more often pumpkin spice, are already on store shelves and will be hanging around through Thanksgiving or until they run out.

Like the saying, “everything old is new again,” pumpkin beer has a much longer history than many people realize. Modern versions of pumpkin beer were first brewed in the mid-1980s, but the style goes back to colonial America, out of necessity. When early colonists first arrived in New England, they discovered that barley didn’t grow very well, and they looked around f

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