GREENVILLE – Love them or hate them, pumpkin beers are one of the most popular styles on the seasonal beer calendar. These spiced beers are highly divisive, with some craft beer fans looking forward to their arrival on shelves each year, and some dreading their progressively earlier announcement of fall.

Due to their trendiness, there have been a lot of rushed examples in recent years that have been too sweet and over-spiced, but the best pumpkin beers employ subtlety to evoke the flavors of the season. And pumpkin beers aren’t anything new—some of the first beers brewed in North America by Europeans settlers used pumpkins as a source of fermentable sugar.

Join the Greenville Public Library as Certified Cicerone David Nilsen talks about the surprisingly long history of brewing with pumpkin and walks attendees through a tasting of five distinctive examples. The class will be held on Thursday, Oct. 24 and will be repeated on Nov. 14, both at 6:30 p.m. The classes are exactly the same. This class is for patrons 21 years old and up only. This event is free but registration is required.