Bitburger Brewery Releases Festbier

Might be a targeted area thing - Tucher has been making an appearance all around the DC area. They had their Bajuvator Bock reveal back in January.

However, regardless, I do not want a malty Festbier in this weather yet! Still, it has me wondering if this garden just gets its beers super-fresh, or if these beers are actually year-round production for some locations.

 

Also in the Philly area as well. A week ago I purchased a four-pack/0.5 liter cans for less than 9 bucks. Is this beer the bestest Hefeweizen in the whole wide world? Nope, but it is a very enjoyed beer to drink during a heat wave and needless to say very reasonably priced.

I think that another four-pack is in my near future.

Prost!

 

Jack, you often champion many options in your state, but you also used to champion the notion that "we all have our own unique palates."

 

Right you are.

Just presenting another viewpoint to @unlikelyspiderperson on this discussion topic.

Cheers!

 

Oh I am quite pleased with the options available to me for sure. Its quite a luxurious thing to have my "complaint" be that if I want traditional German style lagers I am forced to purchase German imports.

 

I'd say you're in one of the absolute best markets for beer anywhere. I just happen to live 4 hours from anything in a sparsely populated corner of the country so we aren't a target market for many folks beyond the larger regional/national brewers.

 

Yes, do indeed recognize that I am spoiled with riches of beer available to me (both locally brewed and non-locally brewed). Earlier this week I purchased a four-pack of Heady Topper. It has been a year+ since I have had this beer and it is as good as ever.

In all probability I have sent you this message before but I will do so again: homebrewing!

Even though I have tons of great beer that I can purchase at my local Retail Beer Distributors and supermarkets I still homebrew a lot.

I brew beers that are just not readily available to me or cost too much at the beer stores. Some examples:

• Belgian Saison (I can buy these but the Belgian imports are typically old and very expensive)
• English Bitter Ale (not readily available for purchase - an unpopular commercial style)
• Oatmeal Stout (not a popular commercial style)
• Belgian Dubbel (these cost more than I am willing to pay at the beer stores)
• Kolsch (not readily available and imports are too old)
• 1896 Michelob (my reconstruction of the first Michelob beer brewed in 1896)
• Classic American Pilsner (not readily available to me)
• Bohemian Pilsner (I can buy Pilsner Urquell but I enjoy my homebrewed version more)
• Czech Dark Lager (not available to me)
• Altbier - Sticke version (not available to me)
• My version of Pliny the Elder (I can buy this on draft)
  
• My version of WeldWorks Juicy Bits
• My version of The Alchemist Focal Banger
• etc.

Homebrewing is a very worthwhile avocation.

Cheers!

@jzainasheff

 

You have indeed recommended it before. Maybe someday I will take another crack at. Currently I don't have the physical, temporal, or mental space to give it a shot and I honestly dont have the motivation. I am more than content with my beer options.

Perhaps someday though, I did enjoy the process the few times I have brewed

 

Well, that is a 'killer' right there.

Do you by any chance like to cook? When I purchased my homebrewing equipment at my LHBS in the 1990's the young fellow who sold it to me commented that most homebrewers were either Engineers or people who like to cook.

Cheers!

 

I do indeed. Like I said, I enjoyed the process of.brewing, but with two small.children, a full time job, a half dozen hobbies I wish I had more time for, and access to more than enough delicious beer I just have a hard time seeing it become a priority any time soon

 

I found some very interesting descriptions of the filling of cellars in Klein Schwechat written by Carl Jacobsen about his visit there. The letter is written March 30th 1868 when he is in Munich at Sedlmayr. By 21st of January he was in Steinbruch Pest at Dreher's other brewery. So his experiences were from before this date.

A few things can be noted. "Old beer" (gammeløl) is the same as lager beer. The Märzenbier he came across was being put into storage from mid December to April, after a very cold primary fermentation of no less than 2 weeks most likely, which is when we have the actual brewing date of these beers. This is a few years away from the brewing of Märzenbier nach Wiener art in Munich by Franziskaner Leistbräu in the early 1870s. Year old cellar departments of beer were found by him of both lager beer and Märzen beer.

For a shorthand description of the difference between Austrian Lagerbier vs Märzenbier Carl wrote this in a letter from February third 1868:

"The amount of malt is as follows
Märzen a 0.15% B
30# per eimer = 30 kg pr hecto
Hops. 0.368# p eimer (Vienna pound not toll pound) that is 1.229# pr centner malt
Lager a 13.0% B 24# pr eimer (malt)
0.280# hops pr eimer
(abzug around 11½%B 23,6 kilograms?)
(This last part seems to not be correct but was told to us thusly)
The Paris-beer 32# pr eimer 0.45# hops"

 

Your post was full of great info, but that sentence is really very true.

 

Indeed. I've taken the opportunity to order multiple times from Moonlight Brewing In Santa Rosa over the past few months. Moonlight is one of the few local(ish) breweries that focuses on German style beers. Looking at their BA profile it seems that they haven't brewed a festbier in the past, but hopefully Moonlight will offer one this year.

 

Well, it's been pointed out that Spaten does make its Amber Märzen available to the U.S. year-round, it's just whether or not your particular distro keeps it on hand (mine doesn't).

Do you see Spaten Okto in bottles at retailers? The Biergarten may have a special arrangement with their distro, too -- not sure how the distribution system works in your area.

 

Their lightly smoked lager was super tasty as well.
I was actually pleasantly surprised by their IPA accumen when I got the mixed case earlier this year.
Wonderful brewery indeed

 

Every year, it feels like there's a thread or two that become the gathering place for Oktoberfestbier talk. Given the lack of a Sierra Nevada collaboration this year, the origin of this Bitburger beer, and the notion that previous Sierra Nevada collab threads usually acted as those gathering spaces in years past - it's funny that this thread has become one. It's stepped in to fill the void. (but I bet a Sierra Nevada thread will pick up steam after their release)

 

I started the "first Oktoberfest sighting" thread last year and caught hell for being so premature (right around this time of year, IIRC). I'll let someone else do it this year.

Volunteers?

 

Damn. We killed the thread!