New Beer Weekend #9

Here’s to You getting that new job!

 

I signed up for the BA Oktoberfest online beer tasting suggested by @TongoRad

A beer style that I grew up with and love, I was especially surprised to see that the average ratings are so low as compared to other styles, particularly DIPA’s. The definition of Oktoberfest beers are described from Beer Advocate and Wikipedia below,



“Märzenbier is full-bodied, rich, and toasty, with a moderately high alcohol content. Its color can be anywhere from pale gold to medium amber, but is typically some shade of copper. Like other dark lagers, the aroma is driven by malt, not hops. Best enjoyed by the half liter in a Bavarian beer garden. Märzen (or alternatively Maerzen) has its origins in Bavaria, probably before the 16th century. A Bavarian brewing ordinance decreed in 1553[1] that beer may be brewed only between 29 September (St. Michael's Day or Michaelmas) and 23 April (St. George's Day or Georgi). The Märzen was brewed in March (März is the German word for March) with more hops and slightly higher alcohol content that would allow the beer to last while the brewing of new beer was forbidden from 24 April to 28 September. The original Märzen was described as "dark brown, full-bodied, and bitter".The beer was often kept in the cellar until late in the summer, and remaining bottles were served at the Oktoberfest. The style is characterized by a medium to full body, a malty flavour, and a clean dry finish. In Germany, the term covers beers which vary in colour from pale (Helles Märzen), through amber to dark brown (Dunkles Märzen).Common names for Märzen include Märzenbier, Wiener Märzen, Festbier, and Oktoberfestbier.The Austrian style is light in colour, body, and flavour balance, and is the most popular beer style among the beers in Austria.Austrian Märzenbiers often use caramel malts that impart a sweeter flavour than their German counterparts“


Rated far more beers this past week than my typical week. The reason being this Oktoberfest taste testing. Tried some pilsener to ease into the style . I then tried the following Marzens over several days : Left Hand Oktoberfest, Night Shift Steinbier, soul Purpose Oktoberfest By Greater Good, Oktoberfest by Von Trapp



My best new beer of the week is Mythos special Märzen by Ettaler. This Benedictine Abbey was founded by the Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria in 1330
https://ettaler.de/

Mythos Spezial Marzen by Ettaler

4.4/5 rDev +7.8%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.5


Can poured into an antique Rhein Main Afb general Von steuben officers club Oktoberfest stein . My folks used this at a 1958 Oktoberfest. Besides the Oktoberfest , the Fasching ( Mardi Gras) were also legendary events.

Clear copper liquid produced a thick creamy off white taupe dense foam cap , good retention

Aroma is malty, brown bread

Taste is brown bread , malts, hint of hops , slightly sweet

Low sudsing , quaffable , malt taste lingers . The ability to drink a Mass of Oktoberfest is key to the style. To sit sip or swill a big old mug of beer is key to the style.

Good beer, repeatable, Prosit!

Bayern Munich , current Champions League meisters, usually have a photo shoot with the Paulaner local brewery. Two of their stars, Tomas Mueller and Manuel Neuer raise a glass to your NBW tasting

 

Good morning NBW
Cross post from the Oktoberfest tasting

2nd Shift Oktoberfest
12oz CANNED ON 08/05/2020 (isn't that simple and effective, about 6 weeks old) poured into a test glass for appearance with the remainder to a stein. 5% ABV per can. The beer pours bright light golden honey amber in color with off white head. The head recedes to a thin ring and island of tiny bubbles. Minimal lacing. The aroma is faint with toasted malt. The taste is semisweet pils and toasted malt with a hint of cocoa before a nutty, mildly bitter finish. The mouthfeel is thin to medium bodied with just less than medium carbonation and a dry finish. No defects or flaws in lagering. Overall, good beer, odd Oktoberfest. Very drinkable but the ABV & flavor combination is unique and definitely not the "traditional märzen" the brewery discusses always wanting to brew on the label.

Enjoying this one well enough, even if it's an oddball. If have to work tonight so it's one and done for reviews. Cheers all and enjoy your Sunday!

 

Good idea. I had the same problem with reviews here on BA. Going to "less than" or "greater than" eliminated the truncation.

 

Good day BAs! Another cold morning with some spotty areas of frost. Yesterday we finished processing my butternut squash crop which will, along with coconut milk and Thai green chili paste, make some excellent soup this winter. A decent crop again this year, all sizes ranging from - to:



Today's New Breakfast Beer:




Received 9/8/20 in a Ninja box from @foundersasap. Reviewed 9/20/20. Thanks Jeff!

Date on bottom of can “CANNED ON 08/11/2020”. Stored at home at 42 degrees and served at 45 degrees in a hand washed and dried Jester King snifter.
Appearance – 4.
First pour – Pale straw (SRM 2), murky.
Body – Straw (SRM 3), murky. When held to direct light, translucent. Unfiltered.
Head – Large (Maximum 6.5 cm, aggressive center pour), off-white, high density, average duration, diminishing to a five to thirteen mm ragged crown and a complete cap of varying thickness. Many islands of froth remain on the glass as the head retracts.
Lacing – Good. Wide partial bands of very tiny to small bubbles, connected by mostly slender columns, with a rare stalactite.
Aroma – 4 – Fruity hops followed by a bit of piney citrus and pineapple. No malt, no yeast.
Flavor – 4 – Taste follows nose with a little pineapple as well. Noticeably light bitterness. No alcohol (6.3% ABV, as marked on the label) taste or aroma. No diacetyl or dimethylsulfide.
Palate – 4 – Medium, creamy, lively carbonation.
Final impression and summation: 4. The can calls this a hazy IPA; I agree. Good nose, flavor, and appearance as well as good palate thanks to the oats and wheat. Pleasant and refreshing.

Rating 4, rDev +1.8%.

Hummmm. Two rating of "4" in two days and both with positive rDevs - must be getting soft in my dotage.

 

Poured into a 16 oz Snulip glass canned on 9/2/2020. Pours a very dark brown with a finger plus sticky tan head that leaves scattered lace with solid retention. 4.25

Smell is coffee grounds, milk chocolate, toffee, and vanilla beans. 4

Taste follows coffee is the leader, with chocolate, toffee, and vanilla lending a hand. Simple but pretty tasty. 4

Mouthfeel is a solid medium, plenty of life, not really dry for the style, and at 6.2% it drinks a little bigger. 4.25

Overall this is nice easy drinking coffee stout from a fairly new brewery in the state, I would give this another go. 4

 

Sounds right, I don’t like Yuengling either, its drinkable as you say for one beer, and it’s not a bad beer, it just needs to be ice cold to start and I drink it a bit more quickly. As these kinda beers warm up they get too way too sweet. Nugget Nectar is a pretty good example of one that does agree with my palate, funny this year we got zip in the area, in past years piles on pallets both in cans and bottles.

 

Good Sunday morning NBW/NBS, currently in Burlington VT, on an anniversary trip. Currently enjoying Queen City Oktoberfest. A very good straight down the middle Marzen, another that avoids the sweet trap. Finish is pleasant and dry.
Cheers

Oktoberfest

Lager - Märzen / Oktoberfest | 5.5% ABV

Queen City Brewery
Burlington, Vermont

4.03/5 rDev +5.8% | Average: 3.81
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4

Poured from a 12 oz can dated 8/24/2020 into the test glass
A - Medium amber color, wonderfully clear, excellent carbonation on full display.
Thin white cap resides through the experience.
S - Threads of warm bread , caramel, earthy hops
T - Sweet malts , a bit of herbal hops, caramel is every so slight.
M - Medium heft, light carbonation, semi sweet start, pleasant dry finish.
O - A very nice Marzen style offering, avoids the sweet trap, and I stays in a narrow true to style track

 

I will swear on a stack of Marvel Comics that I have never smoked hops, that wicked weed!

 

Ok, time to try an off-centered beer for the first time. I thought this beer might be one of Dogfish Head's collaborations for record store day, their website's beer description doesn't mention that:

So we have an Indian cuisine inspired beverage (Dogfish loves to mix cuisine and beer) that has a lot of spices (typical of both Dogfish Head and Indian food, at least as I've encountered both). We also have an "imperial cream ale" - imperializing things... you get the point, I think, though it does not appear that the cream in this case is coming from corn, but oat?


Ok, background on the beer out of the way, let's get to the pour, where you can definitely see whatever background is behind the beer with its wonderful clarity. There is perhaps a little influence of the tumeric on this near golden liquid. The head formation was modest, but not fleeting. A thin ring leaves a streak of lace that falls quickly to double the initial ring briefly.

I must say, I've never had a 'Golden Milk' (seems tumeric, cardamom, and ginger are common in recipes I found on a quick search). Regardless, looking at the spice list, I do get the ginger, anise, and cardamom easily in the nose. The cinnamon might be blended in with these, but I'm not getting much vanilla. As for beer notes... there's a bare phantom of a ghost of an American AAL from my past - this is definitely a spice beer more than a cream ale.

Sidebar: this is a classic case where the marketing is billing this as an "imperial cream ale" (with spices). The beer has almost nothing in common with the Cream Ale description on this site, yet it was understandably added as one. Which makes more sense, style mentioned in the brewer's marketing or the actual makeup of the beer?

Taste has ginger and cardamom up front along with the cinnamon I missed in the nose. The anise shifts to the background although its licorice note lingers lightly long into the aftertaste. The vanilla actually surrounds the spice flavors up front, fading as the beer works from front to back of my mouth. In the middle, one is actually reminded that this is a beer when a lightly sweet cream ale sneaks through.

A fairly clean opening, the palate is bombarded by the spices to add a lively feel atop the moderate carbonation. A little heavy for a cream ale, but lighter than might be expected given the boost to make it an imperial. The ginger adds a late tingle, and the anise adds a countering mild numbing beyond that.


Costumes & Karaoke is definitely not for everyone. It has a recognizable Dogfish herb/spice beer makeup, with the spices added the counter any malt/adjunct sweetness. Yeah, there actually is a semblance of a cream ale in the mix, but it's definitely not the focus of the beer. I'm in between on this one - leaning towards enjoying it. I like some of the spices, and they play quite harmoniously - but I think there might be just one too many to work perfectly for me. At least to the point where I might not get beyond two glasses in a row.

 

A new Oktoberfest for me, and it was quite enjoyable.
Copper-colored beer, medium-sized white head, well-carbonated.
Sweet malt, bread, herbal hops.
Caramel, toasted bread, late hops.
Medium-bodied, very nice representation.

 

I’ve got some glorious IPAs set up for today, both Second Fiddle and a Trillium, completely world class breweries, compliments of @WunderLlama . I’ll pop one at 100 kickoff, making homemade meatballs and sauce for the grandkids. Birds vs Rams, can’t go 0-2. Be back a bit after 1.

 

Yeah, I wasn't going to request a change. I also noted that the definition for cream ale has changed on this site to almost be a catch-all for anything as well, since now apparently cream ales can be anything from 4-8% and even be "all malt."

 

Hello, NBWers, back again with a new one.
Cumbre's new hazy IPA, Luminosity. I think it's 6.5% but sue me if it isn't. I had to add it as no one on BA had reviewed it yet. TL;DR: It's good, but not world-class. More?
Read on...and Cheers!

4.1/5 rDev 0%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4 | overall: 4

L - a watery hazy IPA, not translucent, but not "thicc" either as the kids would say. Decent head, not much lacing.

S - Good dank, citric, piney aspects with some guava element moving in the background.

T - More of the same: Pineapple emerges on the palate, along with citrus, guava, and some weedy murkiness. Nothing too distinct. Strata, Citra, and Simcoe. The latter adds that slight weedy/pee note that isn't off-putting. It works, but I didn't get much complexity on this. May wait another week to crack a second can of this to see if the layers separate a bit. Might be a bit too green.

F - Good mouthfeel, a tweener weight for an IPA at 6.5% - tastes more like a heavy pale hazy, and needs a bit more density and certitude to live up to Cumbre's other. Not quite as balanced as Sun Fade in my view.

O - Another nice hazy from Cumbre - just wish they'd slap the ABV of these beers back on the can. Anybody else notice this? They stopped putting the info on the can, and not sure why.

 

Zywiec Porter Beer, I don't think I have ever had a Polish beer before If i did it was a long time ago. Had this beer at a friends home enjoyed it and picked up a bottle for myself. The brewery just calls this beer a Porter but since it's 9.5 ABV I'm thinking of it as an Imperial / Baltic Porter. In any case it's a excellent brew. It looks just as a Porter should black with a thick brown lasting head. Powerful aroma of roasted malt with some coffee This beer is a malt bomb. The taste follows the aroma and is even more powerful. Full but smooth mouthfeel and a long dry finish. An outstanding beer by any standard and at $1.99 for 500 mi a great buy.