2019 Imported Oktoberfests Blind Tasting

Oktoberfest beers have been on shelves here since september 1st but they have stayed in my fridge since, so tonight is the start of the season for me. This year's crop sees the return of Löwenbräu, Spaten and Hofbräu Oktoberfestbier, along with Karmeliten Festbier, and a new festbier from Wieninger. Tonight I have had the Löwenbräu and Spaten and both are excellent as usual. The Löwenbräu has a rich pale maltiness/sweetness along with a noticable hop bitterness and hop flavor. The hop flavor is herbal rather than bright but nevertheless clearly present. The Spaten is more toasty/bready in its maltiness, you can clearly taste the Munich malt in it, along with some sweetness and a balancing bitterness. The bitterness is milder however than in the Löwenbräu. It also has a nice albeit mild hoppy note I find, and the hops are a bit different from the Löwenbräu I find. The Löwenbräu was bottled july 15th and the Spaten july 29th.

Compared with something like Weihenstephaner Festbier or Paulaner these are rich and sweet beers, which is suitable for festival beers imo. There's still enough hops there to keep you refreshed throughout an evening of drinking these.

 

Wow. I’m very impressed with your diligence and scientific approach and will suggest a similar experiment with by “beer crew.” We’re actually going to the German-American Club here in Louisville KY tomorrow to kick off the season and drink a few import varieties plus one domestic. I will post back our experience. Thanks for the great post!

 

I’m not sure, I’ll try to remember to ask him.

I want to say he didn’t run into many though.

 

Bought a 6 pack of Hacker Pschorr last night and pulled a bottle from the fridge today. The bottle was sealed and empty...never had that happen before lol. Anyways, I enjoyed one of the bottles that actually had beer in it

 

Whoa -- that's a new one. Didn't feel a little light when you picked it up?

 

Nope I must need to hit the gym lol. I had a couple of 4 packs in hand which I’ll use as my lame excuse

 

It's in upstate NY so should be in NYC

 

Just had my first Benediktiner Festbier and loved it! Definitely a great value. I have a feeling I'll be picking up several 4-packs of this throughout the season.

 

Yes! Total Wine in Nassau. I believe you’re on Long Island(?).

 

The best kind of Oktoberfest season is one where there's a pleasant surprise among the rest. For me, last year was Hofbrau Freising; this year it's Benediktiner.

I'm trying to start the season with one pack of each beer and then go from there, but due to its value the Benediktiner has already risen to the repeat purchase list for me.

 

To weigh in here on the Austrian beer (my avatar IS Augustiner Salzburg after all!), I highly disagree with calling Austrian Märzen similar to Vienna Lager. Almost all of them are analogous to Helles, being golden in color rather than the characteristic amber, except perhaps drier than the Munich types - only a few craft breweries and some breweries around Vienna make the proper Vienna Lager, such as Gusswerk, Muttermilch (Wiener Bubi), Ottakringer (Wiener Original), and Schwechtater (Wiener Lager, the closest to Dreher’s original from the same brewery). I did a tasting of these over the summer during my time in Vienna, which I shared in the WBAYDN threads. The Viennese are a proud people - if it’s their original style of beer defined by the amber Vienna malt, they’ll call it that way.

For comparison, Pilsner is rarer to find, mostly as a premium brand, and is paler in color (closer to straw), and notably hoppier and dryer.

 

Couldn't agree more. I think I've found my "house" Oktoberfest beer for 2019.

 

I just assumed it was like an amber Oktoberfest only with a lower ABV. Now that I think about it, my cousin did show me a picture of one of the unfiltered Marzens he had, and it almost looked like a New England IPA in color. So Helles makes sense.

Also, I don’t read into the meaning of anyone’s avatar.

I haven’t drank Ritterguts in years and I don’t know shit about Gose’s.

 

I am, but in Suffolk. Rarely find myself in Westbury. But I might make an exception if the beer is that good.

 

I started tonight with the Ayinger, and it would seem that I owe them an apology-

It's really fantastic! Deep and rounded toasted malt profile, just the right touch of hops, adding a nice herbal/spice complement, and finishes with a nice pop. Back to the way I remember it at its best, in other words. Thanks for nudging me in that direction @Jacobier10 !

 

When considering the contemporary Austrian Märzen along with the historical Austrian Märzen and Lagerbier I think one should consider the history.

Excerpt from Bier, Malz, sowie Maschinen und Apparate für Brauereien und Mälzereien by Gustav Noback from 1874 (page 3):
"In the remaining crown countries of Austria Hungary a beer with the character of the Viennesse beer is mostly produced, namely a stronger beer from 11 to 14 percent worts in higher color (starting at dark golden yellow), full bodied with a more sweetish flavor, less hop rich than the Bohemian beer."

Excerpt from Geschichte des Bieres von der ältesten Zeit bis zum Jahre 1899 by Karl Michel from 1899 (page 27)
"Secondly: Viennesse beers, golden yellow, somewhat less extract rich, more alcoholic than the Munich beers."

Excerpt from Enzyklopädie der technischen chemie from 1928(page 386)
"The main representative of the middle colored beers is the Viennesse beer. Over the years deviations and variations have emerged, which make it more difficult to recognize and characterise the real Viennesse type. The beer of the old Viennesse type is a stronger brewed (14% original gravity) beer of golden yellow to red-pale-brown color, not so full bodied, malty and sweet as the dark Munich, not hop bitter, but strong in flavor. At a lower original gravity this type is characterized by versions of red color, such a variant was for a long time the northern German lager beer."

The excerpts below are copied from posts from @jesskidden


Below is an excerpt from Wahl and Henius from their handy book of brewing:

"The color of the wort should be as near as possible that of the beer to be produced. It is described more minutely as light or dark Vienna and light or dark Bavarian. For Vienna beer it is not desirable to use color malt for deepening the color, which cannot be avoided, however, for Bavarian beers."

Clearly the Vienna beer had a spectrum of color to it which included a golden color. It also had three distinct strenghts in the abzugbier, lagerbier and märzenbier. Beers of around 10% plato, 13% plato and 15% plato respectively. Today's Austrian Märzen is around 12% plato and golden colored, so it's lower gravity than a historical Austrian lager, and yet it calls itself a Märzen, which would have denoted a higher gravity lager in the mid to late 1800s.

Blatz Wiener advertisement. Note the golden color.

 

@Crusader, thank you for the historical analysis. It seems that Austrian brewers always liked being different from either the Germans or Czechs.

On my last trip to Austria, I did notice a stark distinction between Vienna Lager and Märzen. For example, with the brewery Schwechtater based just east Vienna (part of the BrauUnion conglomerate owned by Heineken), their flagship beer is labeled a Märzen and is pale gold. In addition to that, they have a specific Wiener Lager which is meant to be the very same one Dreher developed at that brewery in 1841, which is amber and notably sweeter - it is basically the PU of Vienna Lager. The Wiener Lager is distributed primarily around Vienna and Lower-Austria, and is harder to find in the other provinces (I’m speaking of Salzburg specifically, as I lived there for six months).

The Märzen, comparatively, is much more ubiquitous and is popular among university students for being cheap to buy in bulk for parties - it doesn’t have much flavor. Additionally, BrauUnion has several other Märzen labels their breweries also produce, specifically by Zipfer and Gösser - Gösser was my regular beer both last summer and when I was in Salzburg, as I liked the flavor of that best. The reason for the redundancy in brands is due to regional preferences for the brewery of your local region, although young people have much more discerning tastes and choose on those kinds of preferences.

Actually, to throw another controversial wrench in this whole thing - Austrian Märzen, because of its dry and somewhat sweet nature and the crackery notes rather than bread, seems to me to be much more similar to North American (all-malt) lagers, than Helles.

 

I feel similarly. I wasn't as down on last year's as a lot of the forum, but this year's is much better compared to my recollection. It's probably been my favorite import this year, which is somewhat surprising to me because I tend to prefer the paler ones like Hofbrau and Weihenstephaner. The bottles I've had this year though (April date) have had wonderful complexity without becoming cloying or overbearing.