American Made Marzens

Have to agree about the Ramstein and will try the Jersey Girl this year. The Brooklyn brewery also makes a good one.

 

For those interested I picked up a single of Victory Festbier and it's definitely the same beer as always, delicious. Still a dark Amber and I still get the smooth chocolate-y/a bit spicy taste. I will probably be picking up a six pack of this and a few other Oktoberfest beers.

*I also grabbed a single of Bell's, looking forward to trying that one also and it's been a while since I have had it.

 

Was really impressed with the Jersey Girl Oktoberfest last year. A little lighter compared the Ramstein but still flavorful. Looking forward to getting it again this year. Will be interested to hear your thoughts.

 

Had my first Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest beer and it was very nice. Certainly more lightly malted like a festbier which is more to my preference. It does weight in at 6 percent and it goes down easily so that could be a problem if you are not careful.

 

I really enjoyed 'Gansetts Octoberfest that came out last year along with Copper Legend by Jack Abby

 

From what I understand, the Jersey Girl is being canned as we speak. . .

 

I had the Bell's Octoberfest recently. It was alright but I didn't really love it, and I had high expectations going in.

 

Yards with an Oktoberfest this year...news to me. Just found out about it today when I check our distributors new weekly beer.

Overview: https://yardsbrewing.com/products/unter-dog

Label: too perfect a picture and name not to share....

 

WHAT?! I will definitely be trying this! Look at Yards with the Lagers lately, good stuff!

 

Love Yards beers. I hate the word underrated, but these guys fly low. I’d love to have them as an everyday option.

 

The bottles here are 8250, I believe that translates to June 18, 2020

NY has a similar law prohibiting ownership by a chain. Here it was a son-in-law

BTW does anyone know how far out Von Trapp's best by dates are? I picked up a 6 of their Oktoberfests today. It tasted “off” and a can check shows “BB 11/26/20”.

 

could you explain the part i bolded? I saw them today and skipped. I saw that and assumed it was like all the other imports. 8 meaning 2018...and 250th day which honestly made no sense to me since I didn’t think a festbier would be brewed so late in th year. But this place has some old stuff sometimes. I wouldn’t put it past them to have beer from two years ago. Please tell me I’m wrong though.

edit: von trapp I think is 6 months. I think I’ve read that somewhere so not 100%, let’s say 85% sure

 

Weihenstephaner uses a day, week, year, system: the first number is the day--in this case it could either be the 8th or the 18th. The next two digits are the week of the year. The last digit is the year, so 0 = 2020.

So, as @officerbill states, the packaged date is June 18th, 2020.

 

Weihenstephaner date codes are really perverse. You read it backwards.

8250
0=2020
25= 25th week of the year
8 = 8th or 18th day of the month

Yet another example of when people say Julian dating is not hard they are talking through their hat.

 

Thanks for the explanation @MNAle and @grantcty

 

You're welcome. Just remember, these are date codes intended primarily for inventory tracking and trace-back to batch in case there is an issue. They are not intended for consumer use.

Straight up Julian dating is not hard. But, hardly anyone uses that. They are codes requiring knowledge of what each specific digit (or, in some cases, letter) actually means.

 

That's the problem with German beers using whatever codes they feel like.
Weihenstephaner codes are date, week, year read backwards
8250
0=20
25=25th week of that year (June 15-21)
8=8th or 18th day of the month during that week
So 18 June 2020

 

But that's not "Julian" - which is a misnomer for a simple three digit "day of the year" - 001-365 (366)

 

I agree calling it "Julian" is incorrect. I was using the popular vernacular used on this site.

 

But that's not my point (well, it's a side comment point 'cause I do wish "we" would stop using the term. But my wishes haven't worked for the misuse of "adjunct" or "skunked" either, so WTF.... ).

Anyway, the point was that the code used by Weihenstephaner

is not the simple 3 digit "Day of the Year".