Oktoberfest at Tempe Town Lake

Oh, Oktoberfest.

This past weekend, Tempe Town Lake was host to the Budweiser Oktoberfest, a three-day event with live music, rides, carnival and German food, and more beer than you could possibly drink in one sitting. A few people tried, and thankfully they had friends to carry them out when they failed. Several thousand people were in attendance, and quite a few dressed like German barmaidens, pulling off the look oh so very well! Me, I wasn't going for anything so ambitious as getting plowed, just the opportunity to taste some beers I'd be hard pressed to find any other occasion without plane tickets, passports, or a TARDIS.

(It always comes back to a fucking TARDIS, doesn't it...)

I rode the light rail into Tempe because I sure as Heidegger didn't want to risk driving after sampling whatever beers struck my fancy. The BBF would aid me in narrowing my selections from the near hundred different beers on tap, and checking off the harder to find brews makes the decision easy.

The various biergarden tents they had set up accepted drink coupons, which could only be purchased by cash. VISA fails me once again. However, aside from the many generic ATMs conveniently near the coupon tables, there were drink specials during certain hours of the day to balance out the cash/credit inconvenience. My interest was in a beer flight of 8 German beers for purchasing my tickets between 1pm and 3pm, but as luck would have it I got there just too late. Instead, the purchase table attendent, a sympathetic motherly type with curly brown hair, gave me extra tickets to make up for the trouble.

And thanks to that becurled woman's generosity, I was able to savor the following brews.

Warsteiner Premium Verum - A German Pilsner. Generally my palette for pilsners isn't well refined, they taste alike to me. This Pilsner, though, was crisp, dry, and best of all, a little more hoppy than I expected. It's light bodied, but not too light. One more German, checked off the BBF. Yeah, I liked it.

Estrella Damm - Spanish lager, I thought it was light on taste, inoffensive to the palette but not exceptional. The BBF says that it's an easy drinking pale lager with a touch of hops but I couldn't detect that. My impression was that it was like a thicker, stronger Budweiser. Might try it again, if only to pick up on those hops it supposedly has.

Hop City Barking Squirrel - A Canadian lager, dark orange, and tasted a more than a little hoppy. I'd say it's more like a weak IPA as well as a strong lager, which is a good thing. Fact is, I thought I tasted a subtlest hint of apples, which is weird because according to Hop City Brewing Co's website there isn't any apple in this. Huh. Olfactory hallucinations aside, I really liked this lager, and would enthusiastically recommend and order again.

Firestone Union Jack - American double dry hopped IPA out of CA. The hoppy taste is much more subtle in these double hopped IPAs, so you can taste more flavors all around. The Firestone Walker Brewery claims that this has grapefruit citris-iness, I could detect a citrisy character but I thought it was lemon or orange. The overall taste is mild, but alcohol-wise it's strooooong (7.5% alcohol by volume). I'm a sucker for IPAs, especially double- and triple-hopped, so this is one I'd recommend as well.

All told, it was three hits and a miss beer-wise. But it was Oktoberfest, brauts and beers and cute girls in poofy short skirts with knee socks, it's all a hit! And besides, any day that ends with a cold beer is a good day.

Photo credits:Warsteiner Premium Verum, source: Wikicommons, author: LeeKeoma. 
Estrella Damm, source: Wikicommons, author: Erik Cleves Kristensen. 
Hop City Barking Squirrel, source: Hop City Brewing Co. 
Firestone Union Jack, source: Seattle Beer News.