Okay, I know what day it is. It’s like the end of September. October’s around the corner and soon we’ll all be picking out outrageously slutty Halloween costumes and drinking coffee porters and pumpkin ales. As much as I love Fall and all it entails (college football, guys wearing scarves, blazing fire pits), I’m not ready to let go of summer. And really, there’s no reason to.
Not yet. Sure, we’ve passed the equinox and the days are getting shorter and the temps are dropping slightly, but it’s still plenty warm for one last gasp of summer fun. Flip flops, tank tops, and easy drinking beers.
So I headed to Panthertown, a 10,000-acre tract of waterfalls and swimming holes in the corner of Nantahala National Forest. Yes, the water is cold, but the temps are still in the 70s for one last weekend and the beer is good. I grabbed a six pack of Asheville Brewing Company’s Rocket Girl, a low abv (3.2 percent) lager built for sessioning on a hot summer day. Drink this beer in the fall or winter, next to a porter or stout or even a pale, and it tastes like water. After a long hike in the sun and a quick dip at a make-shift beach like this sandbar in the middle of Panthertown Creek, and it tastes like summer in a can.
There’s plenty of time to immerse ourselves in Fall. Next week, or maybe the week after, I’ll talk about my favorite pumpkin beers from local breweries. This weekend, it’s board shorts and swimming holes and easy-drinking lagers. One last time.
Follow Graham Averill’s adventures in drinking and Dad-hood at daddy-drinks.com
