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One of the benefits of seasonal releases is that you have lead time and can do fun stuff like have a label design contest and you can also reference the year in both number and image. It also helps that Enegren Brewing does Germanic beers really well.
Here is your handy link spot to read what I covered in Brew & You in September….
September 5th – Project Barley, A Velvet Glow from Russian River + a state gathering at Long Beach Beer Lab.
September 19th – California Craft Beer Summit in Long Beach plus plenty of Oktoberfest fun.
adidas Originals is toasting Oktoberfest with the adidas Munchen. It comes in Festbier colors, with Prost labeled on them and, most importantly, they are water resistant. No Kolsch will ruin your kicks.
They ain’t cheap though, so save your Euros.
For the last three years, King of the Collaboration, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. has created an Oktoberfest with a German brewery, to give it that more authentic taste. For 2017, Brauhaus Miltenberger is adding the Teutonic touch.
Cornelius Faust, a fourth-generation brewmaster for Brauhaus Miltenberger and his crew visited the East Coast outpost of Sierra Nevada to create the brew. “We used traditional techniques to create layers of rich malt notes that remain light and crisp to the taste. That’s the secret of an authentic fest beer—complex malt flavor in a lager that remains easy to drink while you are celebrating the Oktoberfest season.”
This year the beer will be in both bottles and cans and I have already seen it in my Trader Joes, possibly trying to stay out front of the pumpkin beer deluge that will be hitting us soon.
Oktoberfest continues deep into October over at Brewyard Brewing tomorrow, the 15th where they will premiere their new Oktober Steinfest Beer. It is a Rye Ale’d Lager fest bier with “100% German Grain & Hops bill that has a deep and smooth malty flavor with subtle hints of caramel. A slight spiciness and a silky mouthfeel is present from the addition of German Rye Malt.”
And you can put that beer into your own stein or boot (if you have one somewhere) for a mere $7. Plus if your stein is super cool it might be a winner in their “Coolest Stein” competition. Check out their Facebook page for all the rules.
Fliphouse will be food truckin’ and live music will be playing and they will expand their space for a little outdoor seating as well.
If you are in the anti-pumpkin beer camp or you are looking for something un-hoppy & you are in a celebratory mood. I think you might find something good at the Lucky Baldwin’s.
Maybe even some German fussball on the TV too.
I won’t touch the sauerkraut but I will be intrigued to see what sort of sessionable Germanic style beers that Eagle Rock will be pouring when we turn the calendar page into October.
The L.A. Brewery has thrown plenty of good beer events in the past and this sounds like another winner.
Since I bought Firestone Walker’s canned Oaktoberfest while I still had some of the Sierra Nevada / Mahrs Brau Oktoberfest in the ‘fridge, I thought I should do a taste test. Then I thought that I should do a blind taste test. Then I had my sister-in-law do the pouring so I could get down to business
Here are the results:
Beer # 1 poured a darker shade of yellow in the taster glass with less bubbles but bigger ones. Malt and sweetness on the nose. Flavor wise the minerality comes through. Wheat toast and some floral character add to the roundness.
Beer # 2 is just a skosh lighter color wise with the bigger difference being more tiny bubbles. Not as much aroma on this entrant. The taste is a little sharper initially. Sweeter with minerality more in the background. Touch of honey as well.
# 1 is my winner. It seems heartier to me. More toast and fullness to it. This was really close though. Not a huge gap between them.
Most importantly, I guessed correctly. Identifyingy my choice of winner as Oaktoberfest from Firestone Walker.
The final Okto bier review is of the Eugene, Oregon version from Ninkasi Brewing.
This Oregonian take on the Festbier Lager really starts off quite sharp. Lot of malt and carbonation really hits the taste buds. Some metallic/bitter hop notes as well. Strange (to me) combo of loads of grain/cereal notes combined with a surprising lightness. Also a touch of savory and salt is the lingering taste. The beer pours a lovely dark orange color with a thin line of foam all around the edge of the glass. (Yeah, it’s not an OktoGlass).
Of the four FestBiers that I reviewed this month, this is probably my least favored. The salt kick at the back end really drowns out the malt and kills any sweetness that I expect from this style. I may have been expecting more since their Prism series of lighter beers have really struck me with their flavor.
We head to the Chicago and Goose Island for our third Oktoberfest offering, Goosetoberfest!(That’s what I call it)
Now this garnet hued Festbier smells Germanic to me. Sweet and malty. That combo prominently stars in the beer but thanks to a hearty bitter kick and some dryness on the back of the tongue, this beer avoids being a one-hit wonder. There is a brûlée note that opens up as the beer warms as well. I can easily see this being “imperialized” and then cellared. It really reminds me of the sweeter aged beers like Samichlaus. The label makes claims of toffee and dried apricot. I can understand where people would taste the toffee but the apricot is a puzzler to me.
No matter, this would kill with a bratwurst. The savory would really play well with this especially if you had a sweet condiment to go with it.