German / Imported Märzens

Yes, and you are aware of this from a past thread.

Cheers!

 

Came across an advertisement for Löwenbräu Oktoberfestbier which had a picture of the beer for once which made me think about my Vienna malt SMaSH beer which I pictured in another thread. The name Oktoberfestbier makes me think it's from after WW2 (1949 or later when full strenght beer was available again) since before the war they were selling a Märzen and a Hellquell Export.



The concept of there being a singular "Oktoberfestbier" is a post-war tradition. Here we can consider a few different sources:

Kulka 1933

Der Spiegel 1949:

Narziss 1965:

Pre war, if the Märzenbier was being brewed with Munich malt alone I could see it being similar in color to my Vienna SMaSH beer since that color is similar to brews I've made using Munich malt. After the war the Vienna color of the beer was still being noted. By 1965 we find two approaches to Märzenbier, either Vienna malt or Munich malt mixed to 50% with pale malt. The mixing of pale malt with a darker base malt is clearly a break with tradition, of turning the pale malt into the standard malt and having the darker basemalt play the role of a specialty malt, but this would certainly allow for a lightening of the color of the beer by reducing the percentage of Vienna or Munich malt from say 100% to 50%. The Augustiner Oktoberfestbier advertisement below looks like it's from the 1950s-1960s with a dark golden color, I'm thinking that the Wiesn Edelstoff of 1953 was using a different grist than the Löwenbräu Oktoberfestbier above (a similar golden color to the beer below might be reached with something like 20% Munich malt if I consider one of Sweden's top selling beers which uses 20% Munich and 80% pilsner malt).

 

Notch’s version.

My apologies, I couldn’t recall.

 

@Crusader the H-P Oktoberfest Marzen I picked up today is about the same color as your SMaSH -- maybe a touch lighter, but the Spaten Okto Marzen I've been drinking is much darker -- as always. But that may bring up the Synamar question again.

That said, I can really taste a maltier character in the Spaten -- not that the H-P isn't malty good -- just different. Makes it all interestingly delish.

 

A couple of additional notes.

As per Gunter Stresow (employed by Radeberger since the 1960s in the laboratory among other things), detailing the mail correspondence between brewery director R Horch of Radeberger and Wilhelm Windisch of VLB (Versuchs und Lehranstalt für Brauerei) from the 1920s, concerning a letter from December 21st 1923 (page 4) he notes that:

So Munich Märzen beer made from Munich malt without color malt, similar to Kulka's description, brewed to either up to 13%, which would put it in the vollbier class, or above 13% putting it in the higher taxed starkbier class. If they were brewed to the limit between two tax classes I suspect that they remained in the lower tax bracket of maximum 13% (being brewed lighter than the pre-war 15-16% Märzen). Later in the 1930s when the vollbier class was extended to 11-14% the Munich Märzen likely moved into the 13-14% plato band where it remains to this day, since Kulka exemplifies the Munich Märzen with a beer of 13.9% original gravity:

I just remembered that as per an article describing the Oktoberfest bierprobe (beer test) from 2012:

"Rolf Dummert (Hofbräu) could present interesting figures. Thus in one mass Hofbräu beer are 1000 kernels dark Munich malt, 4000 kernels light barley malt and 3 hop cones."

So 20% Munich malt and 80% light malt (pilsner malt). A modern grist that still makes for a golden colored beer.

 

As a result of this thread, I'm starting to give more attention to the original gravity of such beers rather than focusing more solely on ABV. As a result, I'm softening the statement I made above. The particular things mentioned in the thread were Ron's statement above about being at least 13/13.5º and highlighting the old gap at 15º.

While the Hofbräuhaus München Oktoberfestbier does seem like it's stronger than a typical Märzen (in the wider sense rather than just focusing on the Oktoberfestbiers) - both in terms of ABV (6.3%) and wort gravity (13.7%) (and way past the ABV range provided by the German Brewers Association), now I see it as more clearly Märzen and not really playing in the middle ground between that and Bockbier. For example, some of the Einbecker Bockbiers are just a little touch higher in ABV than the Hofbräuhaus München Oktoberfestbier, but their OG jumps up to 16.2%.

Speaking of which: @patto1ro - Schlenkerla's site currently lists the Fastenbier at OG 16%. Perhaps they decided to change it to make it more aligned with the broader beer tradition (or at least made it appear to be doing so in writing). On the other hand, the US importer for Schlenkerla has it listed as 14.5 Plato. Unless the importer's site is stringently used for legal matters in the US, I wouldn't ordinarily trust it for being up-to-date, but in this case the beer is a relatively new addition to the Schlenkerla that comes over here.

 

B. United shows the Fastenbier in-stock in cans & kegs and I remember having it last spring
http://www.bunitedint.com/information/brands/formats/83/

 

I wrote that sentence poorly and edited it for clarity before your post. I meant that it's a newer addition to B United's portfolio.

 

Ah, okay. Guess we crossed somewhere

 

I am now drinking my first Oktoberfest of the season. I am enjoying a nice bottle of Spaten Oktoberfest right now. It is nice, hoppy, malty, wonderful Marzen goodness. So well balanced and rich tasting Total Wine in Knoxville had Spaten and had Paulaner Oktoberfest biers, in terms of German ones. My Spaten Oktoberfest was bottled May 2020.

 

Just bought a sixer of Hofbrau Oktoberfestbier with a bottle code of 155T, which is the 155th day of this year so early June. Awesome

BUT, it was the 3rd sixer I looked at. Most of them at Total Wine were 183S or early July of last year. Distributors are assholes. I told the Total Wine manager who was not pleased.

 

So, I also picked up some Spaten Okto from a local retailer, though it's not as fresh: bottled February of 2020 (I have the feeling my distro was trying to get a jump on the season and was able to get some of the year-round Spaten that's available from the importer).

So I see a lot of people* saying they feel the Spaten Okto is hoppier than years past, but I'm not sure I agree. Yes, I can smell and taste the herbal noble hops in the beer, but it's more of a balance to keep the maltiness from being overly sweet -- a very nice, melanoidin maltiness that commands the palate throughout the glassful.

And this beer has very good attenuation -- almost too much, as I pick up alcohol lurking in the nose. But the dry finish mingles with the mildly bitter and spicy hops to keep this beer from being cloying and I wonder if many pick up the dryness as hoppiness. Even with that dryness, I can taste good, bready malts in the finish too.

Yes -- balanced, but really more malt-rich than hoppy, with the hops doing their intended job to keep sweetness in check. A very delicious beer, as usual -- in my opinion.

*My reason for not directly quoting KentT

 

Stocked at my Wegmans on Friday or Saturday
Does this really translate to May 23, 2019?

 

Sadly, it does. Beers brewed in 2020 will start with 'L0' followed by the Julian number

 

Best to inform the folks at Wegmans they're selling last year's beer.

(And that their distro probably sold them year-old beer)

 

Yeah, I knew it was. Just didn't want to face reality since this is the same thing that happened at my beer store last year

I was looking for the beer manager, apparently she's off today

Meanwhile I'll just get a couple of 6's of HB bottled on 6/30/20

 

Be fun to watch them gush.

 

Let alone the underhandedness of the distro dropping it as new stock -- you know *they* can read those dates, it's made for them.

 

That sucks. Did you see I found the same with Hofbrau in MN? Luckily, I read the codes and picked the new ones. It was a mix of new and old.