Raiders of the Lost Fort, left, and Pulpit Pounder Porter are two seasonals by Buoy Beer.

The autumn equinox has come and gone, the days are getting shorter and the flavors of fall are here. With the cold, dark nights come strong, new brews meant to keep you warm and toasty. Coast Weekend has rounded up a few seasonal offerings from local breweries and good-old standbys to enjoy this fall.

Wet hope beers are tricky to make because of the timing. Everything in the brewery has to be put on hold until the precise moment of ripeness — then the fresh hops are picked from the vine and driven to the tanks with haste; two weeks later the beer is released. Fort George’s wet hop beer is appropriately called Fresh IPA. If you’re looking for a beer that defines early fall, this is it. Drink it while you can. It won’t be around for long.

The Fort’s Drunkin Pumpkin Ale is now called Squash Buckler, because it’s available in 22-ounce bottles and you can’t put “drunkin” on a bottle of beer. Same beer, with a smooth malty and pumpkiny flavor without a lot of spices.

Fort George also has the “North” series of beers, which are strong seasonal beers. They’re available whimsically and include North the Seventh, a barrel-aged imperial Belgian-inspired IPA, and North the Eighth, a Russian imperial stout. Also arriving this fall is Plaid, a Scotch ale, strong and bittersweet.

North Jetty Brewing in Seaview, Washington has two seasonal offerings. Brewer Erik Svendsen says of their Seaview Autumn Blueberry Rye, “The rye gives it some spiciness that we use to balance out the 126 pounds of blueberry puree.” The beer has the aroma and some of the sweetness and flavor of blueberries plus caramel flavor from crystal malt. “It doesn’t scream fruit beer,” says Svendsen. “The blueberries are part of the whole, not out in front of it.”

The other seasonal offering is the Graveyard of the Pacific Imperial Red Ale, a big beer with strong malt and caramel flavors to balance the hops. It’s made in collaboration with Heathen Brewing in Vancouver, Washington.

The Astoria Brewing Company doesn’t have a seasonal beer, but the smaller original brewery at the Wet Dog has Killer Whale Pale Ale, which you can drink while watching the humpback whales in the river. This beer is very hoppy for a pale ale, and might better be thought of as an IPA. Citrus and a bit of pine with an astringent finish. Another seasonal entry at the Wet Dog is Brewberry, a dark copper colored wheat beer made with marionberries.

Inspired in some way by another Astoria brewery, one of Buoy Beer’s seasonal ales is the Raiders of the Lost Fort Imperial IPA. This is a big IPA (8.7 percent alcohol) with more hops in the nose than in the taste, which is crisp, potent and slightly citrusy. The overall effect is a medium-strong, flavorful IPA.

Another seasonal entry is the Pulpit Pounder Porter. The name is an odd one. Could it be related to Obadiah Poundage, who in 1760 described this dark beer as the drink of “labouring people, porters etc.” and as “racy and mellow”? Like most cold-weather brews, this one is strong, 6.5 percent, smooth and nutty with a fruity quality, and is lighter and less hopped than many porters.

Harvest time means wet hop beers. These are beers made with newly picked hops, rather than the dried hops used at other times, and the flavor is, as you might expect, crisp, lively and less bitter than other beers. In a word: unprocessed. You’re tasting something right off the vine. Buoy’s entry in this category is its Fresh Hop Session IPA.