Here are the beer-related goings-on after work tonight:

• The Europeans have seen the light! Tonight at 8pm, Radegast Hall & Biergarten (113 N. 3rd St., at Berry St., Williamsburg) will pour American beer from their taps, including Riverhose Tripel and Harpoon Munich-Style Dark. Okay, so they’re European-style American beers, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt here. They’ll also have a few American beers in bottles.
  
  
• Sticking with the American theme, what’s more American than football? There’s still two NFL games left in week 1 tonight, and the Bronx Ale House (216 W. 238th St., at Broadway, Kingsbridge, Bronx) is celebrating with some gut-busting food and beer specials, including $3.75 pints of Olde Saratoga Lager, and $26.95 for a tower of Olde Saratoga and two dozen wings. I’m exploding just thinking about it.

Tomorrow night at Destination (210 Avenue A, at 13th St., East Village), I’ll be hosting a trivia night called Smart Questions for Stupid People, sponsored by S.K.I. Beer. We’ll have giveaways from Harpoon and Radeberger for the winners, and obviously, there will be some beer-related questions.

Trivia starts at 7pm. Hope you can make it!

However creative, this is not the proper way to make a pumpkin beer.

After weeks of suffering through 90-degree heat, the air finally has a tinge of autumn in it. So, with this, I say: BRING ON THE PUMPKIN BEERS!

It’s an acquired taste, but with the right balance of spice, pumpkin, and crispness, a pumpkin beer can comfort you while you weep over the end of beach trips, Summer Fridays, and frozen adult beverages. Among the well-known pumpkin beers are Dogfish Head Punkin, Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale (brewed in New York State!), and Brooklyn Brewery’s Post Road Pumpkin Ale. But there are new entrants, too, like Fire Island and Sixpoint, who are both brewing pumpkin beers for the first time this year (Sixpoint’s is due out later this season). 

Have one of these this weekend and enjoy a taste of fall in a glass. We’ll be back here on Monday with more beer-y fun.

Among the handful of New York-brewed beer labels approved by the Tobacco Tax & Trade Bureau this week was the above, approved Wednesday for Brooklyn’s Sixpoint Craft Ales… a beer awkwardly registered with the name Bill’s Burger.

It could be sheer coincidence that there’s a B.R. Guest-owned restaurant called Bill’s Bar & Burger in the Meatpacking District. It could also be sheer coincidence that Bill’s is set to open a massive new location near Rockefeller Center next week. It could also be sheer coincidence that the beer is a drinkable 4.9% ABV - ideal for pairing with something heavy and meaty. But that’s a lot of coincidences for one beer.

Here’s what’s fermenting in the beer world:

• Recap of Tuesday’s Sixpoint Back-to-School event at The Stag’s Head [The Beer Friends]
• An Oktoberfest in West Chelsea? Sure, I’ll bite. [The Full Pint]
• And then there’s another all-you-can-drink beer fest in Chelsea October 1st and 2nd. Verbatim from their description: “don’t expect high brow.” [GWBF]
• More distribution for North Bergen’s New Jersey Beer Co. [NJBC]
• 200-year old beer found in Baltic Sea shipwreck [CNN]
• Victory Brewing Co. recalls two batches of Helios Ale [Beernews.org]
• Yes, this is really happening: The 2010 Great American Beer Festival Fantasy Draft [The Beer Mapping Project]

Matt Levy details the history of a brewer’s mansion from Brooklyn’s 19th-century brewery boom (Photo via Levy’s Unique New York)

We’ve mentioned in the past that Brooklyn has a long and storied brewing history. In fact, in 1900, there were a whopping 48 breweries operating in Brooklyn - a far cry in both number and capacity from the three in full operation now. It’s hard to imagine just how much beer flowed from the borough, and it makes you realize that the prohibition movement may not have been as outlandish as it seemed.

If you want to learn more about this - and get a little exercise in the process - Levy’s Unique New York is holding four Brooklyn Beer History tours by bike during New York Craft Beer Week (September 25 and 26 and October 2 and 3). The tours will ride around Williamsburg and Bushwick, exploring sites like “Brewer’s Row,” a 12-block area that housed 12 breweries in the 1890s. The tour lasts three hours and includes a stop for a beer at Matt Torrey’s in East Williamsburg.

Tickets are just $25, and you can make a reservation by contacting Matt Levy directly at (718) 930-4768 or matt [at] levysuniqueny.com.