Oak-Aged Oktoberfests....Is that okay?

I do prefer the traditional method but in all honesty I like seeing some twists come out. To me lets see how they taste, if they are pretty good then by all means keep them with others. I think as long as we have our Traditional and then alts no one will mind since access is still there for their old fav.

 

Another aspect to consider, is the nuanced flavor and lower ABV of a traditional Oktoberfest, be it pale or amber.

Barrel-aging largely works the best with imperial stouts, because of their robust, bold flavor profile, and their high ABV. You can throw potent oak, bourbon, whiskey...etc. flavors at it, and the bold roasted bitterness will still come through.

I'm not so sure those toasted, bready, melonoidin subtleties will poke through in a barrel-aged beer, and nevermind the subtle kiss of Noble hops that help give the style balance.

Basically, why bother going through the extra effort of lagering, using more expensive Munich/Pilsner malts, and in some cases going the extra mile with decoction mashing, if you're simply going to bury some of this flavor with barrel aging?

There's nothing subtle about an imperial stout, it hits you over the head, and can take the brunt of a barrel-aged onslaught. Perhaps this would work better with a Doppelbock if you're hell bent on experimentation. I believe there's a few examples out there. In my opinion this wouldn't suit my tastes either, but it has a better shot at standing up to barrel-aging than a 6% Oktoberfest.

 

Is barrel-aging in accordance with the German Purity Law? Would have to imagine that storing beer in wooden barrels was common practice back then, and as far as I know, the Purity Law only applied to the beer's ingredients, but I'm not sure.

 

Cisco Brewers made an Oak Aged Bohemian-Vienna Style Lager they branded as Island Reserve Lager. Based upon the BA reviews is sounds like this was a tasty beer.

Cheers!

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/261/80568/

 

oak aged and bourbon barrel aged are two entirely different things. Two Brothers uses foudres to oak age their beers. Two brothers foudres are made from virgin french oak. Foudres are typically larger than a barrel and will have a more subtle impact than a barrel.

two brother foudres


you can also oak age with oak chips or oak staves. i know it's a different style but oak aged yeti is aged on virgin french and american chips.

 

No. It's a rubbish idea.

 

What!?!

You couldn't work the word "bollocks" into your post!?!

Cheers!

 

this one has quite a cult following each year in Montana

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/7122/156080/

 

Beechwood aging would probably work better!

 

Oaktoberfest from Firestone Walker is pretty good. I think the wood adds to that bready flavor, I feel it is not overpowering. I'm sure singles of this beer can be found and widely distributed too (considering I get it in MA).

 

Except that beer isn't aged on oak.

From the Firestone Walker Website: " This beer is 100% stainless steel and gets the name Oaktoberfest as an ode to our hometown, Paso Robles, Spanish for "Pass of The Oaks"."

 

Tom (@drtth), another example of the 'power of suggestion' a couple of posts up. ^

Cheers!

 

I thought Atom Smasher was alright. I could definitely taste the wood in it, though I don't know that I would necessarily consider it an improvement to the style.

 

Not everything needs to be "extreme". Throwing a proper marzen into a barrel is defeating the purpose of the style meant to be subtle, nuanced and something that you can drink a few of in one sitting.

 

Blasphemer!!

 

The beer the OP mentions. I enjoy. A great deal. For a beer that I would like to spend several hours drinking. Not so much.
I am hoping, and also suspect this oak aging is done in their foudre's. Where the beer was originally done as part of their j-series.

 

I've had a few "imperial" marzen, and although they was good (Avery The Kaiser, and Boulder Dragonhozen I believe) I can't imagine myself liking barrel aged marzens. To each their own of course.

 

And you are not alone here. Atom Smasher came up number 17 out of 55 on the Paste blind tasting assessment.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/artic...marzen-beers-blind-tasted-and-ranked.html?p=2

Cheers!

 

I actually really dig the Paste lists, because they're done blind. I must say I'm a bit disappointed with this one though. I don't like this criteria...

"- We accepted anything sent to us, as long as it involved “märzen,” “oktoberfest” or “fest” in the description, or was categorized as such. There was no specific ABV limit, which means that a few beers labeled as “imperial märzen” or “imperial oktoberfest” were accepted.

- Beers were judged completely blind by how enjoyable they were as individual experiences and given scores of 1-100, which were then averaged. Entries were judged by how much we enjoyed them for whatever reason."

These rules indicate a brewery could send in a barrel-aged Imperial stout, or an IPL, and as long as it was labeled "Marzen" by the brewery, it would make the list.

I realize they mention that the tasters had a preconceived notion of what an Oktoberfest should taste like, so imperial versions could actually negatively effect the beer's chances at a high ranking. But the fact that their main criteria for judging is whether or not the beer tastes good, muddles the activity of "ranking" the top Oktoberfests.

The one fron Two Brothers did do well, and I'm sure it does taste good. But I don't think it should be entered into a list of Oktoberfest beers if it's 7.7% ABV and barrel-aged. They have ABV cut-offs and stricter criteria for their IPAs.

That being said, I believe Paste answers the OP's question within the review for the Two Brothers' beer. "Imperial oktoberfests also didn’t fare the best as a substyle in this tasting..." In addition to that, it still didn't taste better than three imports, especially Weihenstephan (#3) and Ayinger, which tops the list at #1.

I'd like to know the condition of the green bottled Spaten and Hofbrau too...

 

I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with it if that is the question. Pretty much every style has had some spin put on it that is not in keeping with how it was made historically. It doesn't really sound very good though. It seems like kind of a gimmicky way to cash in on the popularity of barrel aged beers.