Oktoberfest is a style of lager that was popularized in Germany. The beer which is technically known as Maerzen (<= pretend the e is really an umlaut over the a)is a type of lager which was traditionally brewed in the spring, lagered all summer long and brought out for a festival at the end of September. If you just go ahead and rent Beerfest you'll learn all about it. Anyway the beer is now typically a malty brew with medium or better body and not a significant amount of hop flavor or aroma. Malt flavor is the name of the game and it is most tasty. I've been snagging Oktoberfests as the've come out and I'd like to share my favorite so far. The group has consisted of brews from Schlafly (St. Louis Brewery), Capital Brewery (out of Middleton, WI), Spaten Brewery (from Munich) and Flying Dog Brewery (out of Maryland). Let me tell you, for me, so far my favorite has been:
Flying Dog's DogtoberfestIt has a wonderful malt character with enough of a hops balance that just nails it for me. As if that wasn't enough, their bottles are homebrewer friendly which means I can re-use them to bottle my own brews. I am also unfairly biased towards dogs in general.
There are quite a few more out there to try (Boulevard's Bob 47 and Paulaner Brewery's entry) so I doubt I'll have tasted them all before the season is up.
I encourage everyone to get out there and pick up a six of an Oktoberfest and let us know what you think.
Update: I have picked up some Boulevard's Bobs 47 Oktoberfest and while good it doesn't yet knock Dogtoberfest off its perch. I had high hopes for Boulevard because I felt they had hands down the best seasonal Irish Ale this Spring that I was fortunate enough to try.
3 comments:
Sounds like a great beer. I'll have to give the Dogtoberfest a try. And you won extra points for declaring your love of dogs.
Nice work here. Love the beer blog.
Gish, good luck with your beer blog. It looks to be shaping up quite nicely, so far.
A beer blogger in Gary, Indiana (of all places) got a regular beer writing gig for his local newspaper because of his blog. Good luck.
Thanks for all the kind words especially from those of you I consider excellent authors. I'll admit I like to talk about beer but didn't know if it would translate well.
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