Halloween is here, and every year my refrigerator fills up with pumpkin beers and other specialties that evoke the spirit of the season. Part of the fun is in discovering these beers, perhaps similar to trick or treating for adults.

Of course, not every beer needs to be brewed specifically for Halloween; some simply happen to have names that fit. Let’s take a whimsical look at a number of local breweries and beers that are themed for the holiday.

Funky Fauna Artisan Ales

Funky Fauna embodies the spirit of Halloween as seen through the name and label designs of many of its beers, and in fact, Funky Fauna’s first batch of beer was brewed on Halloween night in 2021.

More recently, such brews as Witches Emporium and Unholy River fit right into the season and are worth your time. Witches Emporium is a wild saison fermented in oak with peaches, and conditioned with tangerine juice, with 3.6% alcohol by volume.

Unholy River is a collaboration with Sunriver Brewing Company, brewed with peaches and lemon juice, and additionally dry hopped with HBC 586, Citra and Lemon Drop hops. It’s 5.6% ABV, with a bright tart aroma featuring subtle fruity hops and earthy flavors offering lemon and peach skin.

The brewery also just celebrated its third annual “Spookiversary” last weekend to celebrate the anniversary of its first brew. As part of the fun, it released Three of Sixes, a saison brewed with Pacific Northwest peaches and Peach Carolina Reaper peppers for devilishly spicy heat.

Spider City Brewing Company

You won’t find a more Halloween-appropriate name than Spider City Brewing Company among Central Oregon’s breweries (except perhaps for Boneyard), and while you won’t actually find a taproom full of spiders, there are several beers that embody the theme.

Start with All Hail Pumpkin Ale, an amber ale brewed with real pumpkin and spices, and which is a great accompaniment to jack-o’lanterns and Halloween candy; it’s 5.7% ABV with 22 IBUs. Follow that up with two of its spider-styled beers, Zygoballus IPA and Widow Stout.

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Zygoballus, named for a genus of jumping spiders, is a piney IPA with malty character for an old-school flair, with 6.6% ABV and 61 IBUs. Widow Stout is dark and roasty with cocoa notes, an arachnoid take on an Irish stout. It has 5.5% ABV with 35 IBUs.

Boneyard Beer Company

Speaking of Boneyard, its very name is a synonym for cemetery, although founder Tony Lawrence was referring to an alternate definition, a place for damaged or discarded equipment, when adopting the name for his brewery, which he originally pieced together from spare equipment from brewery boneyards.

For the Halloween theme, a number of Boneyard’s beers feature names that play off of “bone” such as Holy Bones IPA, a west coast style IPA with 6.66% ABV and 66 IBUs. Or check out the Bone Dry Lager, a light American lager that’s crisp and drinkable with 4.5% ABV and 20 IBUs.

And don’t overlook one of my favorite Boneyard beers, Hop Venom, a scarily drinkable imperial IPA with 9% alcohol by volume and 60 IBUs.

McMenamins

The McMenamins breweries release a seasonal beer for Halloween every year — Black Widow Porter. Black Widow was originally created in 1991 at the company’s Thompson Brewery in Salem, and in the years since it became a company-wide beer.

It’s a robust porter with licorice root added for subtle notes of licorice along with a touch of caramel and coffee notes from the dark malts. The recipe is brewed at each of the McMenamins breweries, so what you’ll taste on tap at the Old St. Francis School was crafted in the basement brewery.

It’s also available in cans, which were brewed and packaged at the Edgefield Brewery in Troutdale. Overall the recipe is 7.1% ABV with 34 IBUs.

Keep an eye out for these and other Halloween-styled beers to enjoy this spooky season.