Minhas Oktoberfest
Minhas Craft Brewery

 

 

 

Appearance - Medium amber. Slightly hazy. Short, cream-colored head; not persistent.

Smell - Light. Sweet caramel malts. Brown sugar, bread.

Taste - Malt and cloying sweetness. A little toast and spice, but overwhelmed by bland sweetness.

Mouthfeel - Medium-light.

Overall - While this beer does touch on some of the aspects of an oktoberfest, it's just not. Minhas seems to have a consistent problem with over-sweet beers, this one is no exception. Not good.

 

 

 

 

I bought a single 22oz bottle of this from Woodman’s in Janesville, WI for $2.59 in late 2011.

Pours a cloudy amber color with a slight head and very minor lacing. Scent is weak but has hints of malts, grains, and spices. Taste is rather malty and slightly dry. There are hints of spices being an Oktoberfest brew but this brew is rather watered down in comparison to most marzen brews. Drinkable but I don’t care too much for the dry malty after taste. Overall it is decent but there is definitely room for improvement here.

Reviewed from notes.

Poured out a semi-murky brownish-orange color with the same disappearing white fizzy collar as most of the Berghoff products I've recently sessioned. Smells (and tastes) mostly of pastry dough meant for white bread or perhaps even sweet rolls... There is a faint nuttiness and spicy hops presence but to my palate they need to be elevated about 30% to actually achieve some sort of balance with how much of a sweet malt emphasis there is. Or maybe overall just make it a lot less sweet to begin with. Mouthfeel is somewhat sluggishly carbonated for the level of sweetness, just about all of the petty annoyances this beer gave me can be traced back to being too sweet. However, having said all that, there are not any medicinal or mineral off-tastes in this brew, which is better than usual for Minhas.

Cloudy orange appearance with thick brownish head that quickly settles down leaving little lacing. Smell is very sweet, with a hint of malt and floral hops. Alcohol is evident.

Taste is similar to the smell, at first it attacks your tongue with a very sugary booze taste. Has a hint of floral hops, grapes, malt and bread to it as well. Medium bodied with moderate carbonation. Aftertaste is a spicy sugar taste.

Not bad compared to other Minhas beers (it's at least drinkable), but goes overboard with the sweetness. I'm surprised the ABV is lower than 8%. If you ignore this, it's an average beer. Worth a try if you want to taste Minhas attempt at the style.

Not sure if this is the same thing as the Berghoff version, what with this company playing fast and loose with naming conventions...

This beer pours a slightly hazy medium copper colour, with one finger of fast-disappearing thin foamy off-white head, which leaves nothing in the way of lace in its wake. It smells of sweet, bready pale malt, and floral hops. The taste is more sweet, sugary bread, a bit of plain oily nuttiness, a slight underlying astringency, and very mild noble hops. The carbonation is quite sedate, the body medium weight, and slickly smooth, in the malt sugar manner. It finishes still fairly saccharine, the hops barely making a dent.

Well, better than anything else with the Minhas name on the bottle - vastly better, which is still only saying so much - it's still pretty one-dimensional, even for the style. Drinkable enough - there, I said it.