Oktoberfest! San Tan Brewing Company Oktoberfest German Style Lager

Hello hello! Daver here, still sampling and strangely sober.  Aw yes, now we’re talking, this here is a local brew coming from a well-covered brewery here.  Behold, the San Tan Brewing Company’s submission in the seasonal style beers, the Oktoberfest German-style Lager.

Sigh. And it's in a can. Why do you do this to me, San Tan?

Well, I can’t very well hunt down a bar that’ll be serving it on tap. OK, I probably could, but it’d be too late to post about and I’d lose the capacity for rational thought and coherent sentences. I’ll just bite the bullet and go with what we’ve got here, commercially available. Once again, served in the jam jar mug. I really ought to invest in a proper stein for these German style brews.

On first pour, you have a clear, amber body, with a thin head that fades out quickly. The bouquet is modest but vividly more interesting than in other similar brews. There is a more profound malty sweetness, perfectly balanced with the tang of the hops and the yeast. It's a more robust experience for the tongue as well, the tang is almost like an orange rind, but the malt flavor is still clear and present. The ingredients list shows six different malts used, I like this variety. It's not dry at all, though it's still somewhat crisp, like the bite of a gala apple. It's a good relax-o-beer, with an ABV of 5.5% that's not over the top in alcohol content.

So, despite the dreadful presence of an aluminum container, this was a solid hit for San Tan Brewing Company. And a beer worthy to call itself German-styled. And that is the last of the Octoberfest beers for this month. Thanks everyone, now go forth and sample them for yourselves. Responsibly, of course. Prost!

Oktoberfest! Abita Brewing Co. Octoberfest Marzen Style Lager

Greetings my fellow fall-fest fans, Daver here to once more imbibe a seasonal sample and relate the results of my research and reactions. Gods do I love October! 

I've chosen a brew from this side of the Atlantic but just barely this side of the Mississipi, the Abita Brewing Company's Octoberfest Marzen-style Lager.

A quick perusal of the blog archives will show I’m a little partial towards the Louisiana-based Abita Brewery. Haven't had a bad brew with their name on the bottle yet, let's see if the streak holds with this one. Once again, I’m serving this with the 12-oz jam jar with the handle. I have no idea what they’re actually called, but jam jar mug is as good as it gets.  Side note, the bar where I first saw these used claimed that these were pint glasses and charged me as much. LIES!!!  Will never go back to *establishment deleted* again.

On first pour, this lager has a dark, coppery, amber color, a clear body with a thin head that fades quickly. The bouquet is richer than anticipated, notes of sweet malt cutting through the expected tang of hops and yeast. A higher content of malt used in brewing is behind that, no doubt. It's a broader, full bodied experience for the palate. The tang is thinner,  more subtle, but it's ever present. The finish is still dry, but not so crisp and clean.  With an ABV at a respectable 5.4%, you'll be able to enjoy it casually this time of year.

In summation, if the German import was a basic brew done with great care to its substance, this Lousiana batch has more style to it. Yeah, I'd definitely drink this again. You should too!

Oktoberfest! Weihenstephaner Festbier Märzen

October's a special time of the year for me, friends. Halloween and the cooling temperatures, and all the costumes you could ask for till the next convention. And Oktoberfest!

Yes, I realize that Oktoberfest proper was a few weeks ago. Sue me, you’ll still see these brews on the shelves for a little while. So for the occasion, I thought I'd give a try of some brews specifically for Oktoberfest. The first is a German import, Weihenstephaner’s Festbier Marzen.  Weihenstephaner has been brewing since the year of our Lord 1040, in the town of Freising, in Bavaria, Germany.  Almost ten centuries of Old World brewing expertise, let’s see how this goes.

an import, Weihenstephaner’s Festbier

On first pour, it's got a modest head that thins out quick but lingers as a thin layer on the top and clings a little to the edges of the glass. It's recommended to drink a marzen from a mug or stein. Full disclosure, my mug is big enough for three pints so instead I've used my jam jar pint glass.  What? There’s several drinking establishments out here that use those damn glasses at the bar! Ok, they’re hipster recycle-chic bars, and I only went that one time, but they’re still completely legitimate. Moving on, the bouquet is like a stronger pilsner, the faintest of sweet malt with a tang from the hops and yeast.  The body is a clear effervescent gold. It's a simple brew if one compares it to craft brews from the New World, but wow. You can clearly taste the ingredients. The barley, the subtle hops, and the yeast just sidling in, they’re well balanced. It’s a crisp brew that avoids real bitterness, with a clean finish. It's not fancy, but damn good quality. Most American lagers, or “macrobrews,” who dreamt up that sobriquet anyway, how they have that stronger tang that turns into a rough, skunky, bouquet? This is what those brews only wish they could be. You would need an actual skunk to make this brew curdle. This goes in crisp as a winter chill, finishes smooth as a frozen pond, with a respectable ABV of 5.8%. Do you want to build a snowman? Prost!

And if that’s too long for you, here’s the short version. I liked it, it’s good, try it yourself.

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.

The Big Beer Flight: Beers Of The World

Hi there, I'm your Beer Blogger, and have you ever wanted to try all the beers? ALL the beers? I know I have!

So last year, my friend Katie bought for my birthday a book, Beers of the World: Over 350 Classic Beers, Lagers, Ales, and Porters, by David Kenning. As books go on one of my favorite subjects, it's a pretty good read. It gives brewery history, regional information, taste review, even pairing suggestions. It's not comprehensive, and one of the biggest sections is devoted to American beers, but it's a good introduction to beers worldwide and brewing traditions.  And it's got purty pictures.  But it's not a review I'm writing here.

Lots of bars and ale houses have a beer flight, a checklist of their beers where completing the flight will earn you a prize, like a t-shirt. Restaurant chains like "Old Chicago" have them, and smaller establishments like my local pub "George and Dragon" have them. That's a lot of beers, and they can only be redeemed at the restaurant or pub that originates the list, and more and more they come with mobile phone apps that let you track your beers. That's not gonna work for me. Y'see, my phone isn't compatible with those apps, and besides, it's too easy!

So here's the plan. I'm using this book as my own personal beer flight. I'm going to taste every beer listed in this book, domestic and foreign! The easy part is comparing beer menus and store inventories to the index in the back of the book for sampling. The hard part will be those beers that require a passport. AWESOME!!!

To start, I've gone through the beer menu at Lost Leaf, this local pub in downtown Phoenix with a diverse menu that's always changing. There's several Belgian, Czech, and German beers in the fridge, not to mention a huge list of national beers. Oh, there's also British, Canadian and even a Lithuanian brew but they weren't in the book. More to come on the Lost Leaf menu, later.

But next, will be sampling the German brews at Oktoberfest this month! Let's see how many of them are in the book, and how they taste.

That's it for now, I'm your Beer Blogger, and it's beer o'clock somewhere.