Considering the Future of the Summer Beer Cooler | Imbibe Magazine

Illustration: Matty Newton

In simpler times, warming weather heralded the arrival of easygoing seasonal beers, here for the summer and then sayonara before kids return to school. Beer drinkers anticipated their arrival, shiny new objects amid the all-year mainstays, packed inside coolers alongside ice-cold light lagers.

Summer beers now swim in a crowded sea, susceptible to “the volatility of newness,” says Scott Ungermann, a former brewmaster at Anchor Brewing. “Because [a seasonal] goes away and comes back again, it’s new every year. But you can really only be truly new once.” Compounding matters, breweries are also battling hard seltzer’s rise, as well as a surge of alternative beverages such as hard kombucha shellacked with a wellness veneer.

For Imbibe, I look at evolution of the summer beer cooler. Curious?