Bayernbiere Bought and Drunk

It's worth pointing out though that both beers are clean and in my opinion well made. Löwenbräu might be sweeter but it doesn't have any off-flavors that I can find, unlike Swedish extra strong pale lager beers which tend to have off-flavors (they're definitely not brewed to be high-end festival beers). The Löwenbräu is a clean, sweet and mildly bitter beer.

 

That kornmalt isn't German... Dutch? Danish?

Prosit!

 

Swedish .

 

I

I was slowly heading in the right direction!! Next guess would have been...

Prosit!

 

<-------- Check Crusader's profile...

 

Pretty slim pickins on anything new in my area, but I'm having a weekend celebratory Weihenstephan Festbier and there's an HB chillin' for the second round. Also snapped up some more Ayinger for more weekend choice over the next few days.

Prosit people!

 

The only US Oktoberfest I ever had was Flying Dog Dogtoberfest, and it was way too sweet and unbalanced for me.

 

A new day, a new beer. Hofbräu original is my favorite among the three Munich pale lager beers sold here (Löwenbräu, Spaten, Hofbräu), which I think has the most distinct hop flavor of the three. This is something which I take note of also in this beer, it has the most distinct herbal hop flavor of the three Oktoberfest beers tried so far, along with a good balancing bitterness making it somewhat refreshing. The sweetness is on par with the Spaten I would say, it's there but not cloying, but the balance is achieved moreso by the hops than by the malt as in the case of Spaten I find. It's a nice one for sure.

 

Thought I would change things up by trying one of the new Swedish Oktoberfest beers while the flavor profile of the Munich variants is still fresh in my memory. The beer is surprisingly amber, I was expecting a Swedish take on the pale Oktoberfest beers. The aroma is rather familiar however: caramel malt and herbal hops. The flavor is a mix of caramel malt, prominent herbal hops and a somewhat pronounced hop bitterness. It reminds me alot of Anchor Steam beer and some other amber colored craft beers which use caramel malts and more herbal hops instead of the new school hops. To me it seems like the caramel malt robs the beer of the chance to offer something with an individual character. The flavor is nice, it's really a dry beer, not at all sweet despite the caramel, and the elevated bitterness and hop flavors add to the refreshing qualities of the beer. But I wonder what it would have tasted like if the brewery had used a basemalt instead to get the same color.

 

The last of the 4 Munich Oktoberfest beers. It's the driest of the bunch just as I remembered it to be, if I was drinking this blind and someone told me that this was their regular Helles I might believe it. It has a slight paperiness I find, along with distinct herbal hop flavors. The bitterness is not very high but the exceptional dryness makes the bitterness stand out more. Apart from the slight paperiness this is a tasty beer, but I could see where someone would take issue with it being a dulled down version of a Munich festbier. It's not a malt-forward, sweet full-bodied beer, quite the opposite in fact. But I imagine that it would be extremely drinkable on site in Munich at the Oktoberfest and the most sessionable of the bunch (at least among the 4 I have tried).

 

It's time for Samuel Adams Octoberfest. As I suspected there isn't a whole lot of difference inbetween this beer and Grebbestad Oktoberfest, both beers are dominated by the flavor of caramel malt. It's not overly sweet, instead it has a nice balance of caramel malt and bitterness and herbal hop flavors, but it does strikes me as tasting generic after having had a different beer which had the exact same flavor profile just a couple of hours prior. It's clean and well made in my opinion, but it doesn't set itself apart.

 

Last evening: Paulaner Salvator and Oktoberfest.
The Okto really was different than the others I had so far, relatively clean flavors,low sweetness, no cloying effect, very drinkable, but this one definetely hides its strength almost a bit too well.
The Salvator on the other hand was kind of a letdown. Big,boozy, sweet,cloying, but no real substance. Simply not my taste.

 

Is there another Doppelbock you like (or 2), or is the style just not for you?

 

There are dozens of doppelbocks (or bocks within the same strength of salvator) that I love and that I bought crates of in the past.Nankendorfer Bockbier was always a favorite for instance

 

Just curious because, to me, most Doppelbocks are big and boozy with much substance, but I've only had a few I'd call cloying -- and Salvator wasn't one of them. Of course, I don't have the luxury of the smaller breweries that are probably making the style with more hands-on attention and quality.

 

Of the more widely aviable examples, I think Andechser Doppelbock Dunkel, which I had a day later, is way superior to Salvator. But I guess it is an unfair comparison due to color, and after all, a matter of taste.
Of the more well known (unsmoked) franconian Doppelbocks, I always loved Bambergator from Fässla.
Sadly, I don't have the luxury anymore as well- that's why I turned to the likes of Andechser and Salvator in the first place.

 

Korbinian has probably become my favorite, but I always get a craving for Optimator now and again because it was the first Doppel I ever had.

Weltenburger's Kloster Asam is good too, but I haven't been able to buy it around here in a long time. There are some really good local ones from Metropolitan, Sprecher, Schell, and Capital too -- so I guess I can claim some good, smaller brewery examples too.

To the Nankendorfer; there are no beers listed on BA -- you ought to add some.

 

It's friday at last and I finally get to try Weltenburger Festbier. Another surprise in that it is darker than I was expecting it to be, pretty much the color of what I would call a Vienna lager beer. The abv is 5.3% and there's a note of P:13 on the right side of the back label, barely visible in the photo above. So I'm assuming 13% plato and 5.3% abv. The aroma is of nicely bready malts and some light hop aroma, no sign of caramel malt that I can detect, if there's any in this beer it's used solely for color adjustment. Flavor is along the same lines, it has a fresh bready malt taste to it which reminds me of Faust Export, but not as sweet. There's a nice balancing bitterness (but not a strong bitterness) and some nice herbal hop notes. It's very different from the Samuel Adams and Grebbestad Oktoberfest beers which were caramel malt heavy. This beer I think shows the difference that the malt can make in an amber colored lager beer.

 

Of all the Weltenburg beers I've seen here in the U.S., I never got to try their Fest -- it looks terrific. That color is just about the same as Ayinger's Fest Märzen... and a shade lighter than the Spaten, Paulaner, and Hacker-Pschorr Amber Märzens we get over here!

 

It's the closest I have come to trying the amber Munich Oktoberfest beers. I can see where the high praise for Weltenburger that one often sees on these forums comes from, it's really a high quality lager beer. One interesting thing about this beer is that on the back label it says that it is brewed by brauerei Bischofshof in Regensburg for the Weltenburger brewery.