A new Sam Adams beer - Festbier

This was actually produced? This is the first sampler from any brewery that I’ve ever seen without a turd or two in it.

 

I hadn't thought of these packs as a turd dump.

 

Coffee Black Lager?

Not my cuppa' joe, but one man's turd...

 

Huh? I thought they had solved that problem already in the early 1940s:



Interesting to hear about the extract used and its supposed benefits. This I thought was sort of funny though:

"We went back to natural hops, simplified the process and made some other improvement..."

So they bring back the natural hops, great, but one wonders what sort of simplifications were made. Was the more complicated process somehow a detriment to the beer. It sounds like giving with one hand and taking away with another.

Concerning hop products and harshness I'm reminded here of Boston Beer's Pure Hop pellet which:

So they can basically decide how much of the hop they want to include in the pellet and remove elements which would be present in the whole hops that are deemed to cause coarseness/harshness.

 

Yeah, Olympia's "simplification" probably refers to that ex-Pfizer guy Hamm hired developing a "still-secret method of adding the extract to the brew".

See, there was a secret!

At some period when Theo. Hamm was brewing in San Francisco (mid-50s to mid-70s) they advertised that they grew their own hops in California - as well as using imported hops. Likely those hops came from hop ranches included when they bought the Rainier brewery in SF (unrelated to the later Rainier of Seattle).

 

Sounds like they were using an isomerized hop extract, a product which would have been rather new at the time, split into two additions, one in the brew kettle and one during fermentation (could be a post-fermentation addition I guess if they still counted the ruh stage as secondary fermentation):

The increased shelf life seems to be about the hop extract being more light stable:

Some further explanation:

Using a standardized hop product would help in achieving a consistent end product coming out of different plants I imagine.

 

And consistency since:

Theo. Hamm stated that:

Quotes from the 1968 MN. STAR article noted above.
I guess we've drifted a bit OT from the thread's main subject, however smoothly we did it...

 

Circling back to the core of this thread...

That's right, after a week of fighting off heat exhaustion, I'm ready for "sweater weather."

Did not purchase, but will. A new-to-me Oktoberfest, my annual pumpkin beer tick and 3 each of SABL & Oktoberfest to give away to guests.

 

Will buy this...might be only one but I won't lie and say if I see it I won't buy it

 

Yeah, probably the only way I might try a pumpkin beer after 20 years.

 

I said nay to their Oktoberfest, how can I say nay to their Festbier without trying it? Eh?

 

Don't give Calagione any ideas!

This is exactly what I said about prison hooch a few years back.

 

I review only one pumpkin beer a year and this pack will keep me from having to find a single of something. My wife or her friends will drink the other two...

 

Yep. And that mixed pack will give me a chance to re-establish my opinion on the Okto Marzen.

Wonder if the BL is the reformulated recipe?

 

I may buy that variety pack as well if I see it, I definitely will if that’s the only way to get the festbier. Also I haven’t had Boston lager in ages so it’ll be a nice revisit.

It’s like beating a dead horse sharing our opinion on their marzen and I think most of us feel the same, but…it tastes like fall to me. Every year I feel like it’s so popular with the masses that without fail someone gives me one or I drink one at someone’s house. I’ll admit I always enjoy the one or two I have each year if not for tradition alone. Long way of saying I don’t mind it at all in the variety pack

 

Picked up the Weihenstephaner fest beer today at total wine Greensboro, NC

 

What? That weird beer glass they sent me years ago (without requesting it) is obsolete? I'm afraid it was never used for BL (only used once to observe the CO2 nucleation on the rough spot on the bottom).

 

I've probably been drinking Spaten Oktoberfest for longer than Sam has had an Octoberfest, so I guess we all have our own traditions.