Fall Beer Sightings (2019)

So far, I have had:

Sierra Nevada's

But I did not enjoy it.

 

Is that in order of you favorites? If not I'd be interested in what your ranking is of them?

 

No, not in any order just yet. Depends on the day and what I have a taste for. I can more easily comment on the bottom picks, though… I’d say Sam Adam’s and Saucy for me so far. Great Lakes is borderline, pending another try due to the booziness mentioned in my previous post.


Almost all the rest have been really good to great, it would be hard to pick favorites… I will be curious when we do our blind tasting which will be our favorites this year (Hofbrau won last year). Just awaiting on a few more specimens first, though. Probably try to group into two tastings between festbiers and marzens to make it more comparable this time around. Again, mainly waiting on Spaten and Hacker, which hopefully hit soon. Then we should be set to go along with a few other local adders.

 

Will you be serving the beers in opaque drinking vessels?If so, what will you be using (e.g., Solo cups)?

In my opinion this is an absolute must. I hope you do it this way.

Cheers!

 

We actually use small snifters, but we actually do it blindfolded. So the 'moderator' offers up the samples to the blind participant. We would hand two glasses and the person would pick the better of the two and it would move on to the next round, and so on.

We did 2 brackets that narrowed it down, with the final bracket having those top two beers plus a few 'wildcards' to the ultimate winner. We did this over two weekends so our palate wasn't wrecked.

This year, we are grouping them differently like I said, marzen v. festbier. The 'hybrids', those inbetween both extremes may fuzzy the lines, so probably throw those in both sides to some extent.

I'm thinking we just do 5 or 6 samples of each and we pick our favorite from the lineup and be done with it, versus a multi-day bracket this year. Keep it more simple and just pick our favorite marzen and festbier from each lineup. One per day, type thing.

 

Picked up Masthead Haunted Hayride Pumpkin Ale today and saw a Columbus Festbier.

 

March 14!? Had to pass.

Oh there were bombers too. March 7th for those.

Still snagged a huge lager haul of Oktoberfests, Pils, and pale lager.

Very happy.

 

In the past, when these bottles had no date on them, would you have bought them?

As BAs, we cry out a lot on these forums for proper bottling dates. But I can't help to wonder if Ayinger putting date codes on the bottles is helping or hurting their sales in any way. It's probably such a small percentage of people that actually know how to read the code and interpret what it means that it doesn't make a difference at all, but I am curious. My suspicion is that the vast majority of people don't realize they started adding a date code to the bottle at all.

 

Guess there'll be no import Oktos for you anymore Capt. Ultra Fresh.

Most of the imports I see are bottled between March and May (even Feb), you'll be SOL unless you can talk a distro and retailer into carrying Paulaner or H-P year 'round... but then you'd probably have to promise to buy more... and the dates will start to creep... then next season will roll around...

Guess you need to stick with NEIPA.

 

I sure as hell hope it hurts their sales. Maybe that would motivate them to do better production planning and package these beers much later in the year for a beer intended for consumption in late September - October. By mid-September these Ayinger beers will already be over 6 months old. That is nuts!!

Cheers!

 

Well Fall beers have officially taken over here, Pumpkin Ales and Oktoberfests as far as the eye can see. I do enjoy these beers but when they arrive early then they leave early and that part I don't care for. And while beers like DFH Punkin Ale ages okay, I can already tell by the stacks of cases that there is going to be the same issue this year as last year where in October you are going to be drinking beers bottled in July.

And note that we will be in our 5th heatwave of the summer this week with heat indexes well into the 100s.

 

And that situation sucks. I wanted to drink the SN Oktoberfest beer last year (in October) and all that my local stores had were beers packaged in early July. I refused to buy that beer. I purchased Sly Fox Oktoberfest instead.

Cheers!

@cjgiant

 

Yup, I sure did.

Many years it would be the first one I had simply because I had no idea how old it was.

Weihenstephan’s was bottled mid-June. And the Paulaner(s) that hit my area are in May. I typically see mostly May dates which is fine with me.

Mid March sucks. Of course seeing later dates in this thread plays a part in me holding out. I’ll keep an eye out for those.

And I’m definitely still going to roll the dice with it on draft.

The other part is that it hasn’t been all that good the last couple years either.

 

For those in Ohio... Wow, this may be near my top this season!

 

Last year's Ayinger Oktoberfest beer tasted like it was old/stale to my palate. Maybe it was because it was a 'bad' batch or maybe those beers were just tasting like the 'old' beers that they were.

Regardless of the the explanation last year's Ayinger Oktoberfest beers were a disappointment (especially considering their inflated prices).

Cheers!

 

While I don't wish poor sales upon a brewery (especially one whose beers I really enjoy) I do get the frustration. It's not a great situation. I'd love to hear what Ayinger's reasons are for producing/bottling so early but I doubt we'll ever get a straight answer.

What I can say is I've never had a bad beer from Ayinger. Celebrator, Altbairisch Dunkel, Bräuweisse, and the Oktoberfest are some of my favorites for their particular styles. But I've also never had really fresh versions to compare them to.

 

Eh -- I still think you're shorting yourself with freshness obsessiveness -- I'm drinking some Spaten Premium this afternoon that was bottled in February -- going down quite nicely.

 

And just to clarify I would not specifically use the word "bad" to describe the Ayinger Oktoberfest beers I purchased last year (2018) but those beers were definitely 'off' (because they were too old?) and when you factor in the fact these beers have an inflated price this just made things more disappointing.

There is a part of me that is curious as to why they packaged this beers in early/mid March. But there is also a part of me that 'says' who really cares - Ayinger is just packaging these beers too early for a Sept./Oct. seasonal.

As a point of reference I noted in my local Wegman's there are 6-packs of Spaten Oktoberfest where the bottles listed a best by date of 06/2020. These were bottled either in May or June 2019. If Spaten can do this then there really is no excuse (IMO) for Ayinger packaging their Oktoberfest beers in March.

Cheers!

 

If you want to consider "Fall beer" Oktoberfest...I just.. literally one hour ago brought home the Sierra Nevada 2019 fest. And it's tasting mighty fine.

 

When I emailed Merchant du Vin last year about the date code, they told me it’s bottled in March because it’s a “Marzen”.

I might still snag a bottle. But like I said, I’ll definitely have it on draft.

It’s not necessarily being super strict about freshness. I’m factoring in the fact there’s so many Oktoberfests to drink and that Ayinger’s hasn’t been as good the last couple years.

If Weihenstephan’s (always a favorite) was bottled in March I’d probably pick it up.