(Courtesy Boston Beer)

Who doesn’t want an inflatable beer hall for your front lawn this fall? We’ve that “Words to Drink By” and more.

Samuel Adams’ Inflatable Oktoberfest Beer Hall

Samuel Adams has found a new way to bring Oktoberfest home. And when we say home, we mean your front yard.

The Boston brewer has unveiled the Samuel Adams Front Yard Beer Hall, a massive inflatable Oktoberfest tent designed to transform your lawn into something resembling a miniature Munich beer hall.

And yes, you can actually buy one.

Released September 1, the inflatable stands 10 feet tall and 13 feet wide, with enough room underneath for folding tables, chairs, friends and presumably more Samuel Adams Oktoberfest than your neighbors were expecting.

It sells for $199, comes with its own air blower and is available in limited quantities through Samuel Adams.

The idea grew out of the increasingly enormous inflatable decorations that have become fixtures on American lawns every fall.

“This year, we wanted to create a new out-of-the-box fall experience that could bring the magic of Munich’s Oktoberfest directly to fans,” Jon London, senior director and head of beer at Boston Beer Co., told USA TODAY.

Samuel Adams is also giving away an even more ridiculous version.

From September 1 through September 15, the brewery is running a sweepstakes for a supersized 15-by-20-foot Front Yard Beer Hall that comes with an inflatable bar and furniture, ceramic beer steins, T-shirts, hats and koozies.

Naturally, all of this is ultimately about Samuel Adams Oktoberfest, the brewery’s seasonal Märzen-style lager and one of its most enduring fall releases.

Munich’s Oktoberfest returns September 19, but if Germany isn’t in the cards this year, apparently all you need is $199, an electrical outlet and a sufficiently understanding homeowners association.

Words to Drink By

“It costs a lot of money to look this cheap”― Dolly Parton

(Sierra Nevada Taproom, Mills River / Courtesy Sierra Nevada Brewing)

Sierra Nevada Brewing Enters 2027 with  “License to Sell”

The nation’s second-largest craft brewer recently gathered its wholesaler network at its Mills River, North Carolina brewery for a James Bond-themed annual business meeting dubbed “00Sierra,” where the company laid out an aggressive strategy for navigating an increasingly difficult craft beer market.

At the center of its 2027 strategy are what the brewery calls its “Core 4” brand families, which will receive increased marketing and sales attention rather than spreading resources across a sprawling portfolio of smaller projects.

Sierra Nevada is also targeting what it calls “the Vortex,” the ugly cycle where declining retail sales lead to lost shelf space, which in turn leads to even weaker sales and eventually even less distribution.

The brewery plans to fight that cycle by giving wholesalers what it jokingly calls a “license to sell,” while pushing harder for retail placement and refreshing packaging across its portfolio in 2027.

James Bond gimmicks aside, the message coming out of Mills River was pretty clear.

Sierra Nevada isn’t retreating from a challenging craft beer market. It’s doubling down.

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