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

I love octoberfests and most anything barrel aged. Having said that - atom smasher was a huge letdown and one of the worst octoberfests I've ever had (and I've had about 40).

 

Meh, I'm finding it hard to get worked up about it. A lot of American breweries are already putting out departures from the traditional style. Some are overly hoppy, others are really sweet. I can see why Two Bros. want to do something to stand out from the crowd. I actually want to try this, but I'm not sure I can commit to an entire sixer. I would guess that Foudres will have less of an impact than smaller barrels, but still worry about vanilla and sweetness overpowering the base beer. If I run across it on draft, I'm sure I'll wind up getting a pint.

 

Great tasting beer but I didn't get any flavors even close to wood in it, kind of hard to imagine how you did. Not even close.

 

I was thinking fermenting in wood not necessarily adding flavor from a barrel. A low abv beer like a saison loves an oak barrel with or without white wine lets say. Maybe this style might like a similar treatment.

 

Indeed. The same hop merchants who provided the Swedish lager beer breweries with their hops also provided the pitch for the barrels, as can be seen in this inventory from 1870 showing the hops (left column under "humla") and pitch (right column "hartz") bought from a particular Bavarian hop merchant (Hopf & Söhne, Tuchmann, Leopold Alexander). Each merchant provided both hops and pitch.

 

The subliminal power of one word is amazing, isn't it?

 

Sure it's okay! You could also say it is oaky.

I'll see myself out

 

Sierra Nevada did something to stand out from the crowd the last two years. By collaborating with a German brewer, brewing excellent beers, and adding a SUBTLE twist. Neither 2015's or this year's strayed very far from a traditional Oktoberfest, if at all, depending on one's opinion.

Last year's was the number one rated Oktoberfest here at Beer Advocate if I recall correctly, and this year's is #6, including being #5 out of 55 on Paste's list.

I would think pleasing both the beer geek audience and traditionalists counts as standing out from the crowd. You don't always have to increase the ABV and toss a beer in a barrel to stand out.

 

But that's doing it the hard way .

 

So, building and maintaining those giant foudres is easy???

 

Yeah, they certainly did. It's not as if there's only one way to stand out in a crowd. SN has their way, Two Bros took a different approach.

 

I was just thinking of this one! I thought this was done absolutey wonderful!

 

Haha, touche.

Maybe it would be better to characterize SNs approach as all too rare.

 

You are able to reply (comment) to the Paste Magazine article. Why not post your query there. Maybe Jim Vorel will respond with an answer.

Cheers!

 

Imperial Maerzen is plain ludicrous. The term Maerzen is just an indication of strength. An Imperial Maerzen is an amber Bock.

 

I'm confused. I thought "Maerzen" was derived from the name of the month in which such beers used to be brewed.

 

In modern German brewing it's a strength classification. You couldn't call a beer over 14 Plato a Maerzen in Germany.

 

Ah, OK. Thanks.

 

Finally got around to this. There's definitely a "woody," almost tannic quality to the beer. However, it suffers from the same issues as most US Oktoberfests. It's overly sweet and the mouthfeel is way too thick. The alcohol is also noticeable and detracts from the experience. It's a decent beer, but not something I'll be getting again. As an Oktoberfest, though, it's miles away from what I'm looking for in the style.

 

Well that explains why I could not get any wood in the flavor. It was an ok beer but not a buy it again. Bought it by name not reading the can.

So far SN is my favorite Oktoberfest, overall I do not like the style but the SN is pretty nice.

Enjoy