Spring is a time for renewal and new beginnings, and what better way to celebrate the season than with a refreshing pint of beer?
As the weather warms up and the days get longer, many beer enthusiasts look for a special beer that is light, crisp, and easy to drink.
What Style of Beer is a Perfect Beer for Spring?
Here, we’ll take a look at some of the best spring beers available, highlighting their unique flavors and characteristics.
- Saison – This Belgian farmhouse ale is a perfect choice for spring. It’s light in body and effervescent, with a dry finish that makes it incredibly refreshing. The yeast used in the brewing process gives it a unique, spicy flavor that is perfect for pairing with food.
- Pilsner – A classic German style, Pilsners are light in color and body, with a crisp, clean taste. They’re usually brewed with moderate hop bitterness, making them a great choice for those who enjoy a slightly bitter taste.
- Wheat Beer – Wheat beers, such as Hefeweizens and Witbiers, are light and hazy in appearance, with a characteristic banana or clove flavor. They’re perfect for sipping on a warm spring afternoon and are often served with a slice of orange or lemon. American wheat ales will typically have a cleaner, slightly less fruity flavor but will still have that light body of a classic warm-weather beer.
- Kolsch – This German style is light in body and color, with a clean and crisp taste. It’s brewed with a subtle fruitiness and a slight hop bitterness, perfect for beers that are easier to drink and well-suited for the warmer weather.
- IPA – India Pale Ales are known for their strong hop flavor, but many of the spring releases of IPAs are brewed with a more subtle hop taste, making them a great choice for those who want a beer with a bit of a kick but still want to be able to taste the other flavors.
- Belgian Blonde Ale – This Belgian beer style is known for its light body and color, with a crisp, clean taste. It’s often cursed with a slight fruitiness and a hint of spice, ideal for those who want a beer that is easy to drink but still has some flavor.
- Sour Beer – Sour beers are a great choice for spring because of their light, refreshing taste. They have a tart or sour taste, and will often have complex fruit flavors. They’re perfect for sipping on a warm spring day and are often paired with food.
- Berliner Weisse – Another beer style that originates from Germany – those Germans certainly like their beers clean and crisp. Carbonated by a unique method, these beers have a clean and crisp mouthfeel too, but normally the beers would be served with an added flavoring such as raspberry syrups or a sweet herb known as woodruff. American craft beer versions tend to be pre-flavored in the brew with many variants to choose from.
The Best Beers to Drink This Spring
Rather than grouping by style or listing in order of merit, we’ve listed below in alphabetical order ten of the beers which I would recommend you try and search out this spring.
Depending on which style of beer you favor will mean some are more suitable than others – there’s no right or wrong when determining the best beer for spring. It should be refreshing, light, and easy to drink.
A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale by Lagunitas Brewing Co, Petaluma, CA
- ABV 7.5% IBUs 52
Something of an enigma in the craft beer world, this Lagunitas ale seems to take the best of both a wheat beer and an IPA to produce this refreshing ale which isn’t quite as overwhelming as their well-known IPA.
Offering notes of tangerine, lemon, and woodiness, it follows with a bready maltiness, a piney spice, and that lingering, bitter finish you would expect from the ton load of hops added.
Lagunitas boast that this ale uses some new hop varietals which bring the flavors of a tropical island to your palate. A honeysuckle flavor gives an impression of sweetness but doesn’t overwhelm your palate.
The use of higher proportions of wheat in this IPA-style ale creates a smoother mouthfeel that compliments the tropical and floral hop flavors.
The result is a tropical fruit-flavored version of their ubiquitous IPA, perfect for an early spring beer, although it is now available all year round.
Athena Paradiso by Creature Comforts Brewing, Athens, GA
- ABV 4.5% IBUs Unknown
One of my favorite craft brewers from the southeast, Creature Comforts produces a whole series of Berliner Weisse beers, with one for every season. The fruited Berliner Weisses vary the fruit according to the season they are released.
Athena Paradiso is a refreshing, gently tart German-style wheat beer brewed with a house blend of lactobacillus and a variety of fruit juices and purees.
The spring release is brewed with tart cherries, raspberry, and cranberry. With all those red fruits added, the color is quite stunning too.
Clap of Thunder by Tucker Brewing Co, Tucker, GA
- ABV 4.5% IBUs 9
Gose beers may have fallen out of fashion recently, having enjoyed their peak in popularity in the mid-2010s, but, as the only purveyor of craft lagers in Georgia, Tucker Brewing continues to push many of the traditional German styles.
An ideal beer for springtime, this Gose-style beer is reminiscent of a salty ocean spray, with subtle fruity aromatics as well.
Brewed with sea salt and coriander, it’s both tart and refreshing with a subtle fruit sweetness on the backend from the addition of fresh strawberries and prickly pears.
If you long for those spring days down at the beach, Tucker’s Clap of Thunder hits the spot!
Cold Snap White Ale by Samuel Adams Brewing Co, Boston, MA
- ABV 5.3% IBUs 12
This Boston beer from Sam Adams just seems to scream “Spring is coming!”.
Released as one of Sam Adams’s seasonal beers from January to March, you will find this beer on draft and in take-out bottles and cans from the tail end of winter to the very first days of spring.
Brewed using Samuel Adams’s proprietary blend of two-row pale malt and malted wheat, it also uses Hallertau Mittelfrueh noble hops to give the beer those bright citrus and floral notes with just a touch of vanilla and subtle sweetness, preparing you for those warmer days of spring.
Pouring with a golden, hazy hue, the bitterness is low at just 12 IBU to get beer fans ready for those hoppier spring seasonal beers to come.
Fresh Squeezed IPA by Deschutes Brewery, Bend, OR
- ABV 6.4%. IBUs 60
One of my all-time favorites of the craft beer scene, I don’t see why you should wait until spring to sample this amazing beer.
Most beer geeks will tell you it tastes good at any time of the year, but the extra sharp fruity flavors are so well suited to the springtime that it makes it an all-time spring beer classic.
Although Deschutes proudly boast that no fruit was harmed in the brewing of this IPA, you would be forgiven for thinking it’s packed full of citrus and tropical fruits.
Citrus hop aromas abound from the first pour of this beer, with the Citra and Mosaic hops lending a flavor of passion fruit and grapefruit to this dangerously drinkable IPA.
The best news is that wherever you find yourself this spring, you will nearly always be able to track down the world-class Fresh Squeezed IPA from Deschutes. I was actually in Thailand when I first sampled this amazing beer….they have spring in Thailand too, it’s just a tad warmer!
Guava Rodeo by Oskar Blues Brewery, Longmont, CO
- ABV 6%
Oskar Blues may be better known for their forward-thinking IPAs and Pale Ales but they have also branched out into other styles such as lagers, Pilsener, the dreaded seltzers, and they now even make a fruit-filled sour ale.
Guava Rodeo is a sour ale that delivers the refreshing zing of a sour, but with a sweeter, fruity finish. Innovative ale yeast strains developed by the guys at Oskar Blues produce extra lactic acid in the brew for an additional punch of tartness.
The incorporation of pink guava and tangerine gives the beer that sweet and fruity finish with a refreshing zing.
Jack’s Abby Blood Orange Wheat by Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers, Framingham, MA
- ABV 4.0% IBUs 15
Jack’s Abbey is a brewpub in Massachusetts that has been recognized as the leading authority in the American craft beer movement on lagers, especially German-style brews. To keep their authenticity they only use hops which they source from Bavaria each year and use only traditional old-world techniques of brewing.
With Blood Orange Wheat they deliver a crisp and refreshing Radler style of wheat beer which has an easy-drinking ABV of just 4% (Radler is a German-style shandy beer made by adding fresh fruits, traditionally lemon!).
Pouring with a reddish amber color, it’s not your typical lager as notes of citrus hit your nose before your palate is met by the blood orange flavor bomb complimented by wheat to make it one of the most refreshing beers you could sip this spring.
It proved so popular in the Jack’s Abby beer hall, originally as a summer beer, it is now one of their core products available all year round.
Nordic Spring by Dogfish Head Brewery, Milton, DE
- ABV 6.5%. IBU 40
For their latest seasonal spring brew, the guys at Dogfish Head Brewery have wandered a little more off-track and taken inspiration from Norway.
Their Nordic Spring offering is a super citrusy hazy IPA that has been brewed with a Norwegian Kviek yeast along with wild juniper berries, orange peel, and Danko rye malt.
A well-balanced ale but bursting with flavors, the Kviek yeast chosen for this beer ferments at higher temperatures imparting strong citrus and tropical notes, enough to warm up even the coldest of Norwegian springtimes.
A hazy pale gold in color, the flavors are predominantly citrus, pine, juniper, and bready with a soft and pillowy mouthfeel.
At just 6.5% ABV, it’s an easy-to-drink IPA that would pair well with most foods at those first BBQs of the spring months.
Oberon Ale by Bell’s Brewery, Kalamazoo, MI
- ABV 5.8% IBUs 25
For many natives of Michigan, or even those who have recently moved there, the end of winter and the start of spring is marked by only one thing – the highly anticipated annual release of Oberon Ale by Bell’s.
Named after the faerie King in Shakespeare’s medieval play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon is the ideal thirst-quenching ale for springtime.
A classic American wheat ale, it is released every March and available all through the spring and well into the summer months.
A hazy orange-yellow in color, you will be surprised to find it’s brewed with only four ingredients – water, malt, hops, and Bell’s house ale yeast, with no fruit added.
It has a citrussy spice flavor with notes of orange zest and a coriander-like taste. Many would argue it’s best served with an orange slice for an even more refreshing spring wheat ale.
Recently during the COVID days of isolation, Bell’s even released this seasonal beer a few weeks earlier to try and spread some extra spring sunshine in these times of darkness.
Let’s hope that’s a tradition they keep going, as there’s never too much time to enjoy this classic wheat ale.
Saison Dupont by Brasserie Dupont, Tourpes, Belgium
- ABV 6.5%
Widely accepted to be the benchmark that all Saison beers are measured by, and considered by many to still be the best, this charming Saison works perfectly in those breezy yet warmer months of the spring.
The rustic nature of the beer makes it ideal for picnics in the countryside or perfect for an early evening spring gathering of friends and family.
Belgian yeast flavors give a hint of spice and zip which combines with flavors of ripened fruit and floral tartness.
A coppery blonde beer with a hoppy aroma and marked bitterness with a dry finish, it’s still as refreshing as the day it was first created, over 100 years ago.
And despite being the furthest afield brewed beer on our list, it’s probably one of the easiest to track down.
Most beer merchants worth their salt will carry a few cases of Saison Dupont and you’ll find it in most craft beer bars that stock a wider range of imported Belgian beers.
The Best Beers for Spring – Final Thoughts
No matter what your personal preferences are, there’s a spring beer out there for everyone. Whether you’re looking for something light and refreshing or something with a bit more flavor, there’s a brew that will suit your taste.
Spring is a great time of year to enjoy a refreshing beer. From Saison to Pilsners, Wheat beer, Kolsch, IPA, Belgian Blonde Ale, and Sour beer, there are many options to choose from.
Each beer style has its unique flavor and characteristics, making it perfect for different occasions.
So, whether you’re sitting on a patio with friends or enjoying a meal at home, raise a glass to the season with one of these delicious spring beers.