Blind Oktoberfest Tasting (38 Entries)

Strap in, because this is a long one.

After talking this up in a few threads, I have finally completed my huge, blind maerzen tasting.

Before getting into the results, please allow me a few notes on methodology. This tasting was conducted by my girlfriend and myself over a too-long period of eight days spread across three months; I realize that this is not ideal in regards to freshness both in a vacuum and relative to the other beers, but life gets in the way. Each night, or heat, consisted of five or six beers randomly and blindly chosen from the entire remaining pool. This worked quite well, except when I ran into issues with differing vessels. As I was the one who poured the beers, I could feel the shape of different bottles, and cans caused this issue as well (16oz. cans vs. 12oz. cans vs. stubby 12oz. bottles vs. 500ml Euro bottles etc.). To combat this, I blindly tried to find another bottle or can of the same shape to enter into the same heat. This cut down a bit on the randomness, but it allowed me to remain completely in the dark as to what specific beer I would be tasting. In the end, I think this was an acceptable solution and trade-off.

The chosen beers for each night were then poured blindly into nondescript glassware and sampled over as long a time as we needed to deliberate. We took notes on appearance, aroma, taste, and mouthfeel and discussed each beer on both a personal preference level as well as compared to the maerzen entry in the BJCP Style Guide 2015, eventually assigning each beer a numerical rating similar to what reviews are like here on BeerAdvocate (though I will not be publishing those notes here or as reviews as they are rough and not up to my usual standards). We used these ratings to assign each beer two rankings in line with the rest of the beers in the heat: one ranking of personal preference and one ranking of stylistic adherence; each ranking was weighted the exact same, and each ranking corresponded to a point value (first is six points, second is five points, etc.), which we added up and came up with a final ranking for each heat. In the event of a tie in points, we simply chose which beer we preferred; luckily we did not ever disagree since there are only two of us and no available tie-breaker had it gone further. The winner of each heat moved on to the eventual championship round. In order to shake things up a little and make sure that we were consistent in our ratings and tasting, I threw two beers that did not win their heats into the final, one that scored highly (Bells) and another that scored low (Paulaner); I realize this is not entirely methodologically sound, but we are not professionals, and I believe it helped the legitimacy of the tasting in our eyes in the big picture. The championship round ended up having nine entries as a result, much more than we were used to drinking, but we managed.

Unfortunately, two of the entries were plagued by off flavors not characteristic of the beers in their normal state, and as such, they took last on the days that they were tested. These were Great Lakes Oktoberfest, which simply lost its heat as a result, and Von Trapp Oktoberfest, which sadly came up in the final as a skunked bottle after winning its own heat with an unafflicted bottle. I did not give either entry a second chance as I did not think that would be fair in the grand scheme of things, though I do not think that either would have won out in the end anyway, so chalk this up as margin of error. Further, I was unable to acquire one of the winners for the final tasting (Schlafly), so take that into account as well and note it as another error.

I attempted to get as many maerzens as possible, regardless of experience with them or bias toward them. I did make a concerted effort to include as many German entries as I could find as well as examples that are particularly highly regarded here, on other similar sites, and in tastings/competitions like this one.

One last note: neither of us claim to be BJCP certified, Cicerone certified, or anything of that nature. We are just two people that love beer, and we fancy ourselves fairly knowledgeable and apt at tasting. I believe that I have built some sort of a reputation for myself on this site for having an experienced, discerning palate, a wealth of knowledge about all things beer, and, in particular, being a stickler for rating to style. All that said, please take these results with a grain of salt. These are just how things shook out based on these specific bottles of these beers on specific nights compared on our specific palates. I think it is informative and fun to know, but at the same time I recognize that this is far from definitive.

Without further ado, here are the results of each heat, ranked in order, and the championship round results at the very end, ranked in order.

Heat 1

1. New Glarus Staghorn
2. Summit Oktoberfest
3. Surly Surlyfest
4. Ballast Point Dead Ringer
5. Great Lakes Oktoberfest (this bottle was clearly off)

Heat 2

1. Urban Chestnut Oachkatzlschwoaf
2. Spaten Oktoberfestbier Ur-Maerzen
3. Ayinger Oktober Fest-Maerzen
4. Brooklyn Oktoberfest
5. Revolution Oktoberfest

Heat 3

1. Upland Oktoberfest
2. Bells Oktoberfest
3. Hacker-Pschorr Original Oktoberfest Amber Maerzen
4. Central Waters Oktoberfest
5. Goose Island Oktoberfest
6. Burnt City Oktoberfest

Heat 4

1. Lakefront Oktoberfest
2. Schells Oktoberfest
3. Three Floyds Muensterfest
4. Metropolitan After-Burner
5. Avery The Kaiser
6. Lagunitas Tuberfest

Heat 5

1. Von Trapp Oktoberfest
2. Two Roads Ok2berfest
3. Jack's Abby Copper Legend
4. Samuel Adams Oktoberfest
5. Paulaner Oktoberfest-Maerzen
6. Potosi Oktoberfest

Heat 6

1. Schlafly Oktoberfest
2. Switchback Maerzen
3. Firestone Walker Oaktoberfest
4. Prost Maerzen Oktoberfest
5. Great Divide Hoss

Heat 7

1. Olde Mecklenburg Mecktoberfest
2. Capital Oktoberfest
3. Buckledown Oktoberfest
4. Left Hand Oktoberfest
5. Victory Festbier

Championship Round

1. Bells Oktoberfest (CHAMPION!)
2. Urban Chestnut Oachkatzlschwoaf
3. Upland Oktoberfest
4. Olde Mecklenburg Mecktoberfest
5. New Glarus Staghorn
6. Schells Oktoberfest
7. Paulaner Oktoberfest-Maerzen
8. Lakefront Oktoberfest
9. Von Trapp Oktoberfest (this bottle was clearly off)

Obviously there were many surprises, but what shocked me the most was how middling the German examples did, especially Ayinger; none would have made the final if I had not put Paulaner in to shake things up, and even there it did not do well. Upland, whom I personally dislike, did incredibly well, which was another shock. Great Lakes, Jack's Abby, Prost, Capital, and Victory are all known for their lagers, but none did all that well in another surprise. This also shows just how underrated the offerings from Upland and Urban Chestnut are, and it makes a great case for Bells to bottle their Oktoberfest again next year.

To anyone asking where the festbiers are, I will be doing a separate tasting and post for them. There are only four: Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest, Hofbraeu Oktoberfestbier, Weihenstephaner Festbier, and Paulaner Wiesn.

All in all, I know I'll be buying a case of Bells Oktoberfest next year plus a hefty helping of Urban Chestnut Oachkatzlschwoaf as well. The rich, bready, toasty notes in the latter are absolutely incredible, but the balance of Bells won out. Next on the docket is a blind tasting of "budget" beers, mainly AALs, for laughs and to see what I should buy if I ever become destitute.

Thanks for reading!

Tagging a few people that I think were or would be interested.
@ZAP @zid @TongoRad @drtth @AlcahueteJ @JackHorzempa @steveh @utopiajane @cavedave @Ronners14 @hopfenunmaltz @MNAle @keithmurray @KarlHungus @LambicPentameter @Oktoberfiesta @scottakelly

The Field


Focus on the Finalists


Finalists in Glasses


Another View of the Field

 

Thanks! It was a long time coming, and I was actually surprised at how similar many of them were. The championship round was actually pretty difficult and quite close...for the top five especially. It's a style built on subtlety of course, which makes it even harder, but the differences are there if you look, as you noted. I'm more than satisfied with the results! Thanks for reading!

 

I'm sure some of them will be controversial, especially Ayinger not even placing. That was definitely the biggest surprise for me. It's still a great beer (I rated it a 4 during the tasting), but that's what blind tastings do for you (even if this wasn't methodologically perfect). Thanks for reading!

 

Heats 2, 3, and 5 were the most tightly contended. Since both Urban Chestnut and Ayinger were in 500ml Euro bottles (a problem I touched on in the write-up), I knew that they were both present in that round, but I didn't know which was which obviously. I honestly thought that UCBC's was Ayinger and vice-versa; that's how good it was.

I think it'll be some time before I tackle maerzens again. I love the style, but I'm a little maerzen'd out at this point, and this was a real undertaking. Would've loved to get Sly Fox in there, but it just didn't happen.

I don't dislike the Paulaner, I just found it passable. It was almost like ticking boxes, you know? It's got great malt complexity, but there were those bock-esque artifacts that I don't want in a maerzen, and it didn't have quite enough dryness for me.

Thanks for reading! I value your feedback and comments a lot, so I really appreciate you taking the time to get through this one!

 

I'm not really sure what you're asking. Could you elaborate?

Ayinger is one of the highest-rated maerzens on this site at 3.95.
Mecktoberfest is the highest-rated that I had with 4.03.
Surlyfest is next at 4.02.

Cross-reference my list with this.

 

It got to be a little bit of a pleasurable chore toward the end, but I'm really glad that we did it, and I feel that I learned a lot not just about these beers but about the style itself. Thank you!

 

Love their stuff in general, I just wish that bottle in the finals hadn't been off and skunky. The Pils, Helles, and the IPL are my favorites that I've had, but I still haven't been able to get my hands on Troesten, which is right in my wheelhouse.

 

No, a completely normal and spot-on bottle of Von Trapp won its heat, thus advancing to the final. Then the only other bottle that I had of it was the one we opened on the final day, and it happened to be off and tasted nothing like the first one.

Ayinger and Spaten did not win their heats and thus did not advance. I wanted to throw Ayinger in the final to shake things up (along with the Bells and Paulaner), but I could not find another bottle. The drawback of doing heats and not just taking the beers with highest numerical ratings means that beers that unfortunately get placed in stacked heats (like the one Ayinger was in) may not make it out.

That said, by the numerical ratings that I did during the tasting (which did nothing but inform the rankings of each heat), Ayinger would not have been in the top ten anyway. It would have been tied for 11th.

I hope that clears it up a little for you. Again, I know it's not perfect, and I'm not an actual expert or anything, but we did our best to be as fair and unbiased as possible and worked with the little kinks that happen in things like this. I realize Ayinger not making the final is shocking to a lot of people, myself included, but blind tastings often lead to big name beers not making it as far as we would have thought. In that moment, in possibly the most contested heat, Ayinger just didn't measure up, and that's what the results reflect.

If anyone takes issue with me throwing Bells and Paulaner in the championship to shake things up, it's easy to remove them from the results and have Urban Chestnut win, with Upland and Olde Mecklenburg rounding out the top three.

 

I agree, love the style, but I've had enough for a while.

I expected Ayinger to do much better than it did, but blind it just didn't work out that way, and I was honestly disappointed. If I had found another bottle I would have put it in the final as an outlier (like the eventual winner, Bells) just to see if we rated it too harshly or mistasted it or whatever, but alas it was nowhere to be found by the time the championship came around.

For what it's worth, personally, I liked Urban Chestnut's better than Bells, but with style involved and the ratings of my girlfriend, Bells won out fair and square.

Also, many of these are not available to me. I traded for a lot of them. Chicago has good distribution but not this good.

Thanks for reading, and I plan to do more blind tastings especially focusing on less popular beers. I love to contribute content that isn't about hype, IPAs, or Imperial Stouts (but I love those things too!).