Oktoberfest
Urban South Brewery

 

I like it! Nice color, thick, persistent head. Decent carbonation. Smells like Oktoberfest. A good malt balance that lingers pleasantly on the palate.

Crystal clear, white head.
Light smell, toast, Pilsner malt, slightly sweet.
Initially semisweet, followed by some slightly aggressive hop bitterness. There’s the typical Marzen flavors we all love but the hops are a little overpowering.
Th can I have looks different from the above pic so it must be a different recipe, the can says 6.5% abv, and you’ll definitely feel it.
Overall, it’s very good compared to a few other pathetic attempts at the style. For some reason American brewers think everything has to be hopped up like an imperial IPA. This is a pretty good Marzen but not fantastic. It should be all about the Munich malts and not a shit load of hops. I still like it, it’s well made and at 6.5%, you get added value. Lol

09/15/24
Can now says 6.2%, otherwise much the same. I don’t notice much smell except for typical lager.

 

 

 

taste a bit like hot chocolate..but cold

 

Chill hazed burnt amber with a short but puffy khaki head settling to a celluloid film and curled collar.

A lightly toasty nuttiness recedes to fairly fruity yeast esters, like pear, as the crisp carbonation becomes frothy before flowing into a delicately semi-dry finish that helps to make it quite quaffable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CAN: a sixer ran me $8.59 USD plus tax at a beer store in New Orleans, LA. 12 fl oz format. Pull-tab top. Checkered label with very generic German art. Packaged on: 08/09/19 (from bottom of can).

APPEARANCE: Vibrant amber-copper colour - just about perfect for the style, with nice clarity and obvious filtration. Head is frothy and off-white.

So far, so good.

AROMA: Amber malt extract, hints of toast, Munich malt, pilsner malt, obvious bready sweetness. Malts are the focus here, as well they should be.

Aromatic intensity is high for the style. Promises a relatively complex Marzen with a nice toasty breadiness and a filling mouthfeel.

TASTE: True to style but it has a malt extract taste, failing to evoke fresh Munich or pilsner malts, instead coming off like an extract homebrew or something, which is disappointing. It does bring the toastiness and breadiness I'd expect in a top tier Marzen, but I can't get past the fundamentally cheap taste at the heart of this beer...in a style in which malts are king, it's critical you use the best malt possible.

TEXTURE: Smooth, wet, slightly syrupy, filling to the point it's unrefreshing, thick, and crisply carbonated. Not oily or astringent or anything, but it's so heavy and filling I wouldn't want to quaff this by the litre - which is kind of the point of a festbier Marzen.

OVERALL: Too sweet and filling, with a malt flavour that tastes too extract-y for me to be able to recommend this to any Marzen fan. As with most beers brewed in German styles, you're best off going with a German-brewed expression thereof. Still, there's real potential here...with better malts (Weyermann, anybody) and better attenuation, this could really be a contender - and that's more than I can say about the overhopped monstrosities most American breweries are putting out and calling Marzenbiere.

C+ (3.17) / ABOVE AVERAGE

Very good German Fest beer, taste like fresh homemade bread. For the 2018 German Fest season this is my favorite.