Bitburger Brewery Releases Festbier

Hey, it's good marketing for Bitburger for this to always be near the top of the page even if we aren't discussing it.

 

I went to the beer store the other day. They had plenty of 2019 Oktoberfestbiers on the seasonal shelf. I'd say that's way more premature than you.

 

Wha -- ?! Whatever Okto shows up here is rarely hanging around into November, let alone a year... unless, of course, it's been sitting in a distro warehouse all this time...

 

This is how I approach it too. Drink the imports as soon as I see them, start backing off them in September. Then I start making a switch to the locals which are fresher than the imports.

 

I find this even for draft options. A local place by me has just about every imported Oktoberfest you can imagine on tap. However they don't tap them until September 1st, and leave them on through October. I've been there in late October and those beers have fallen off considerably.

I'm typically done with the Oktoberfest season by early October at the latest. Coincidentally so is Germany!

2019: September 21st - October 6th

I wonder who Weihenstephan uses as a distributor?

They're consistently one of the freshest imported Oktoberfest each year. They were the first to my shelves this year, bottled on May 30th. Some years it's bottled in June.

This is light years better than the others which are bottled in the March - April time frame typically.

In addition to that, they're usually refrigerated at stores.

Spaten's pale Oktoberfest served at the tents, or the "Ur-Marzen" we typically get?

 

Do you mean "Importer"? That would be Total Beverage Solutions
https://www.totalbeveragesolution.com/beer/weihenstephan-brewery/
TBS, like most breweries and importers, has a network of local distributors - but, also like most importers' and breweries' websites, no longer lists them instead offering a "Product Finder" page.

Well, that often depends on the type of retailer (grocery/drug, liquor store, specialty beer shop, etc) and package (6 pk vs 30 pk) but, yeah, most stores refrigerate beers based on sales and the assumption that many customers are looking for "cold/ready to consume" beer rather than refrigeration to preserve freshness.

 

Most likely the Ur-Märzen (Oktoberfest). I didn’t order it while I was there, however, and so I don’t actually know, and they pulled it from the menu and replaced it with...Schenkerka Fastenbier, what?!?

I also saw the Spaten Oktoberfest on draft at another restaurant in my neighborhood. Looks like it’s now that time of the year here.

 

Looks like it's worth a try.

 

I'll do it, unless we just want to keep rolling with this thread.

That Fastenbier is probably pretty old at this point. I think it was in this area around February. And was likely kegged before that.

 

I was confused by the online menu, too. I'm hardly in the mood for beer intended to be drunk around Lent. It's likely back stock that they need to somehow get rid of, because they couldn't sell the beer on draft during the season due to lockdown.

 

I thought @FBarber was gonna change the name of this thread...

 

This early it’s a reasonable guess it’s as fresh as it’s ever going to be, and if they start bottling in April or May which I believe is what I read it’ll be about 3 months old in August, maybe 4. My beer store has drastically cut back of these specialty releases and more so on Pumpkin beers, he got severely caught two years ago with them. Seems like the Pumpkin beer phase has burned itself out by a good bit.

 

That seems to be true here, too, going by the last couple of years trend.

 

Roger took a beating two years ago, had cases stacked everywhere, and last year just a trickle. Personally I don’t like them.

 

While not Germany, I feel as if everyone missed this post on page 3.

It appears there are much fresher Oktoberfests in Europe...

 

I have to imagine that the same batches end up on German shelves too, somewhere. Presumably where demand is higher and any batches from April or May get depleted (if these beers go on sale in June/July already). But if it's an area with slow sales, I could see earlier batches hanging around all summer and fall too, that's what happens with domestic slow sellers here, you get a new batch and then it just sits for months until it's gone, sales are not strong enough to deplete the stock.

With US bound Märzen beers the situation may be different as discussed earlier in this thread, and perhaps the Munich breweries take advantage of the comparatively slower months in late spring to brew and store these specialty brands not intended for the domestic market, leaving capacity in the summer for brewing high volume domestic beers instead. I know Sweden's second largest brewery said a few years back when there was a major heatwave and large increases in beer sales that they typically build up stocks of beer in late spring (brew, store, package and warehouse) to keep in reserve for the summer months, I guess in order to take care of unexpected spikes in demand due to fluctuating weather and demand. They then seed this reserve during the summer, mixing it with new batches made in summer.

Even with a week of primary fermentation and two weeks of lagering it's difficult to increase the supply on short notice in the summer if there's stronger than normal sales (and if the storage times are longer than normal this problem becomes compounded, one often sees references to the Oktoberfest beers being stored longer than the regular brands, though if this is really the case and how many weeks this entails I don't know). So a brewery might have to focus on their biggest sellers during the summer months.

I don't know if German breweries work the same or not, or if declining sales in the German market might make this a non issue for them, but I mention it as a potential explanation.

 

Hofbräu is always the first Oktoberfest that shows up in OH every year. Usually followed by Paulaner. I just grabbed some last week. I passed on the mini keg for now because I didn’t think the last one I got was as good as the bottles. Anyway, mine were bottled June 15 (167) this year. Pretty sure they were July the last couple years.

 

Well here's our answer.

Are these best by dates for the domestic beers or the exports?

 

I saw new Hacker-Pschorr with a best by date of March 2021 (H-P and Paulaner are bottled in the same facility and have the same dating system).