Farm Table: Märzen
Beau's All Natural Brewing Company

 

 

Poured from the bottle into a tulip/globe glass.

Beamin copper orange and light chestnut body color. Real nice clear appearance, with a soft khaki colored two finger creamy head. Always seems to manage a thin puck on top of the brew as well. Small amounts of cola like carbonation creep slowly, very nice looking brew.

Aroma is a bit of toasty malt, but a hint of nutmeg, and seems pumpkin like. There's a slight soapy tinge to it on the nose as well which is just a little distracting.

Very solid palate. Toasty malt and a faint touch of light grains on first sip. A bit of herbal hop note mixing in with an almost mineral water and rocky body and mouthfeel. Finishes very clean. A little light bodied, but supportive of the flavors.

A pretty solid simple marzen.

600ml bottle - the real Oktoberfest ended earlier this week, but we North Americans tend to take the whole month to celebrate.

This beer pours a clear, bright medium copper amber colour, with four zaftig fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly tan head, which leaves some dispersing smoke screen lace around the glass as it slowly but surely sinks away.

It smells of bready and biscuity caramel malt, a further toasted graininess, mild bar-top nutty notes, and some plain leafy, weedy, and dried hay-like hop bitterness. The taste is gritty and grainy caramel malt, wet breakfast cereals, a bit of free-range ashiness, some faint earthy spice, and more herbal, leafy, and dead grassy 'verdant' hoppiness.

The carbonation is average in its basic form frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and generally smooth, with maybe a few toast crumbs getting in the way of the sublime here. It finishes off-dry, the complex malt keeping control of the wheel with style and aplomb.

Overall - this comes across as a very capably-rendered Oktoberfest lager, with lots of malt structure and just enough hops and alcohol awareness to maintain a healthy balance. Worth checking out, and probably a great match for all your upcoming seasonal fowl-based noshing.

 

Great sample pured in high pint glass. Pours amber honey. Decent head with fairly good stamina. Adequate nose here of hoppy yum. Full, rich taste from start to finish a little bit of toffee goodness. Not quite fall yet here in Ontario but, ah....why not start now. This would be a great Thanksgivign treat

 

 

 

 

 

Beau's fell out of favour with me after two less then appealing offerings. Lets see if they are back in the good books.

Appearance: A light amber body that boasts ample carbonation and crystal clearness. Poured with a finger and a half worth of head that has produced mild lacing, but does not seem to have stayed around for very long.

Smell: A very inviting mild toffee with mild hay, ginger, herb and almost a sweet carrot and squash in the background. Farm table is appropriate as it seems to bring me back to when I visited my Nono's farm long ago. It didn't take warming to bring it out at all. Well done, and interesting and I can't say that I've had a beer bring back a warm memory like that before. A bit more diversity would grab the perfect on this one. Still well done

Taste: Mild roasted toffee and grainy barley start the beer off as the mildest of ginger and walnut with a slight pepper hint make their presence known before a mixed grass and herbal hop eases this one to bed. A solid, well done mild brew.

Mouthfeel: The aftertaste seems to focuse a bit too much on the grassier aspect of the hops which I'm not a huge fan of. The carbonation seems to help out most of the beer, although doesn't really make it's presence know at the start. The very slow transistioning is a pro and con for me. Just the right amount of dryness in this one.

Drinkability: This beer really excels here, as it walks that nice line between refreshing and easy to drink and flavourful and interesting. This is the kind of stuff that I wish replaced adjuct lager as it's really a beer you could drink at any time, even if it is a falls seasonal. Seems surprisingly medium bodied though, which isn't a bad thing, I just somehow expected it to be a bit lighter in my stomach.

Final Thoughts: Well, this certainly got Beau's back in my good books as this stuff is just an all together great beer. This is a lamentation that Marzen only gets brewed in the fall. I hate to say it Beau's but methinks it is time to retire Night Marzen as this simply trumps it in every possible way. Double thumbs up.

 

 

 

 

600 mL bottle from the LCBO; dated July 20 2016 and served slightly chilled. As is the case with several of their other "Farm Table series" beers, Beau's acknowledges that this is just a re-branded version of an existing product (specifically, their old fall seasonal, Night Märzen).

Pours a crystal clear orange-amber hue, spawning about one finger of frothy, off white-coloured foam at the surface. It lasts a few minutes before giving up the ghost; a decent-sized foamy collar survives, but little else. Subtle aroma; I'm picking up notes of grain husk and lightly toasted barley malts, with weak notes of caramelized sugar, toasted nuts, wet hay and grassy hops.

A respectable interpretation of this German amber lager style - straightforward and very inoffensive. More grain husks, with slight caramelized sugar sweetness, toasted barley and nuts. Clean, Vienna malt-forward flavour. The Perle hops delay their contributions until the back end, at which point they provide a pleasantly grassy, weakly spicy flavour that serves as an effective counterpoint to the preceding malt sweetness. Grainy malt sweetness fades into a slightly persistent aftertaste; that familiar, minerally "Beau's spring water" house flavour is in there too. Light in body, trending towards medium; the carbonation levels are middling, resulting in a subtly prickly feel on the palate and a generally smooth texture.

Final Grade: 3.77, a B+. I am far from a Beau's loyalist, but I respect their ability to consistently produce serviceable, accessible, prototypical brewed-to-style products. Their Farm Table: Märzen might not make its way onto the Top 10 lists of very many BAs, but as far as märzens go, it's hard to argue that they didn't meet the style prerequisites - if not nailed them outright. Like their other Farm Table beers, this is the sort of thing that I might purchase a handful of times per year if it's there (and I'm in the mood for a German-style amber lager), but it's not something I'd go out of my way for.

 

 

650ml brown bottle, sample from the brewery.

Clear copper hue, good frothing on top. Toasted bread grain in the nose with some herbal hop, very clean. Semi-dry but very malty, spicy hop lays down a good balance for this well played malt profile. Clean palate, ample bitterness. A lively one but still true to style.