This is going to be a test in subtleties here. There's going to be a lot of similarities. But I tried, like I said, to have some in here that try to blend the... Like Bell's Oktoberfest, for example, that has changed over the years. This one is definitely hoppier. I think the Sierra too, it's arguably straight up a Festbier, but it has a little more color than it used to. So again, subtleties here, but it shouldn't just be Carmel on Carmel like it was 10 years ago. I'm excited. I always say I'm a seasonal drinker, and this is like right when I start drinking beer-flavored beers again. Yeah, I mean, this style we'll get into is like perfectly... It's so associated with fall. Like the minute we had this colder weather, I was like, oh, now I'm ready to drink Oktoberfest. Yes. Instead of when it's... You could fry a bratwurst on the sidewalk. 92 degrees out at the lake. Yeah. You're listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Today, we are going to be talking about beer, and if you are a fan of beer, this is the best time of year. We are going to be talking about Oktoberfest. Although Oktoberfest is named Oktoberfest, the beer industry has this thing that is often referred to as seasonal creep. We actually started getting our Oktoberfest in the earliest I've ever seen, in June this year. June. It's absolutely ridiculous. It used to be like late July was crazy. I know. In fairness, this beer, I think part of the reason that we got it so early this year is that it was spotten. And that beer is so popular that they brew it for the US market year round. They just only sell it in draft on the non-Oktoberfest season. So maybe that's why. But either way, it's goofy. It's problematic when you still have summer seasonals and you're trying to get people to just all of a sudden switch gears. It's arguably gross when it's 100 degrees out. You don't want to drink a, you know, heavy old school Marzen. I am ready to switch gears by about August. I'm ready to switch. I'm ready for fall. Yeah. Well, plus the summer seasonals have kind of they've toned down a little bit over the years. So there's not quite as many to like get through. So there's also a lot of like light, refreshing beers that are like always available. So it's like the summer seasonal kind of became almost moot because that kind of style is kind of just around a lot. Especially here in the Midwest, because usually if you want to describe a summer beer, it's a wheat beer, and we just sort of like those in general. So you have beers like Lil Something Some, Gumball. They started as summer seasonals and are just available all the time. So today we're going to walk through Oktoberfest. We're going to kind of briefly discuss what the style is, and the major thing that's been going on lately is kind of the modern Oktoberfest style versus the old school. So we're going to actually taste some side by side to try to unpack all that. So thanks again for tuning in. I am Roger. I work in beer here at Binny's. With me today in the studio, we have Jim Communications, Lexi Communications. Cool. All right. So the Oktoberfest style, again, just sort of a, you know, yes, June is seemingly a little insane to start drinking Oktoberfest, but it is worth mentioning. This style came about, it was kind of in celebration of a royal wedding. This wedding was taking place in September. So they wanted, instead of just a one day event, it turned into a multi-week long festival. So the first Oktoberfest was 1810, short of a couple plagues and World Wars, famine. They've had it every year. So it's still going strong. The rules kind of of the Munich Oktoberfest is that there's only six breweries that serve beer at this festival. They have to be located within the city limits of Munich. Those six breweries, we have access to most of them, but a couple we don't. They've kind of been the standard bearers of the Oktoberfest, is what people think of. So it's Spaten, which we have available here, and we're going to try it today. Polliner, same, available here. We're going to try it today. Hockershore, Augusteiner. We do get Augusteiner beers, but we do not get an Oktoberfest beer from them. Lowenbroi, which unfortunately, despite people swearing that they bought it, the other week at Binny's, we haven't had for about 20 years. Lowenbroi. If you've ever doubt the power of good marketing, the Lowenbroi logo is like a rampant lion, like a blue. Baby blue is like the colors of Munich, and boy, people love that logo. They associate anything that's blue with Lowenbroi. St. Pauli girl for a while just stepped in when Lowenbroi left, and now that's not around either. Also, Weinstafaner and Spaten both have the blue-white look and yeah. That kind of diamondy pattern bunting you'll see on all sorts of different Oktoberfest beers. Again, it's worth mentioning that we tend to think of, when we talk about the Oktoberfest celebration, that it's a German thing, it's more of a Bavarian thing. So much like people would stereotype how one state is versus all US people, sometimes people joke that Bavarians are kind of like the Texans of Germany. They're very like kind of value their traditions and they're their own kind of thing. The Lederhosen that you see people wearing, the Dürndals, all those like old-timey costumes, they're not wearing that stuff anywhere else in like in Northern Germany. They're not wearing that. They don't go to Oktoberfest. They don't have Oktoberfest. They have their own kind of beer festivals like Volksfestivals and stuff. But again, you know, Germany, you know, was eventually unified, but it was at one time a whole bunch of different kingdoms with their own traditions and everything. And Bavaria in particular was always really tied in to beer culture. And they, there's tons of breweries in Bavaria and they love their beer. So Oktoberfest is essentially just a celebration of beer in a lot of ways, beer, food, dancing and whatnot. What more could you need? Right? Right, exactly. It's a weird mixture of old traditions and modernity. Music-wise, they love singing like John Denver. I thought that was just an American thing. Is that more of an American thing or do they actually do that in Germany? They do that in Germany. The two most popular songs at Oktoberfest in Munich are Country Roads, John Denver, and Van Morrison. Brown Eyed Girl? Yeah. I mean... Or Sweet Caroline. That's Neil Diamond. I'm sorry, Neil Diamond. How dare I? Okay, so we're gonna start with two of the Munich breweries. The last one, when I was naming the six, I didn't realize, just realized I didn't get to this one. So Hofbrauhaus, Hofbrauhaus München is one of the state-owned, Bavarian-owned breweries. You might have gone to a Hofbrauhaus, they kind of exported the Hofbrauhaus to America. We used to have one right here in Illinois, in Rosemont. Unfortunately, it closed, but there's like one in Vegas. There's one in Cincinnati, but big, large drinking hall, communal tables, music, German food, big Steins of beer. When you're buying beer in Germany, they're typically serving it in half-liter bottles. So at Oktoberfest, you'll see those giant beer mugs. Those are a liter of beer. So a liter of beer. You know, we don't like these conversions here. In America, it's all about the ounces. A liter of beer is 33 ounces. So it's a lot of beer. It's like essentially three, you know, 11. The six-packs that you'll buy of these German beers are usually 11.2 ounces. So it's like drinking three beers in a mug. So with that in mind, there was the old-fashioned Oktoberfest style, which they call a Mertzen. And Mertzen means March. It was typically the last month that brewers were allowed to brew, predating even the scientific method and understanding yeast and bacteria. They knew that in the warmer months, beer would spoil. Beer spoilers like lactobacillus, beer would turn sour, wasn't any good. So there's typically a ban on brewing during the summer months. So they would have to brew a lot of beer in the spring to make it until the fall. And then a Mertzen was a beer that was essentially kept in cold storage, which the German word is loggering. They would dig these big caves and mountains, sometimes drag ice into these areas to make them even colder. But depending on how deep it was, it was pretty cold in there anyway. And they would sometimes logger this beer the entire six months. So you'll see a couple holdouts as far as American breweries who like to pay homage to this tradition. And actually logger their Oktoberfest for six months, which isn't a very economical way to make beer by like tying up your tank for that long. But there are a few people that do it. Goldfinger and Downers Grove does it. Dovetail used to, I don't know if they do anymore. Halestorm used to. Loggers now are typically loggered for a month, maybe two. So there's definitely an old tradition. But in the 1990s, a lot of people at the Oktoberfest, if you're being served a liter of beer at a time, these old school ones that were upwards of like six, six and a half percent alcohol, you drink a few liters of that and you might be in trouble real quick. There's a hill, I guess, in Munich that they call the Puking Hill. A bunch of people that had a few too many liter Steins of beer. So breweries in Munich started making what they called a Festbier that was closer to a German style Helles that's popular in Munich, which is just, Helles means light or bright. So it was more of a golden color lager as opposed to the Marzen style is more of that copper color, amber in color. It uses some Munich malt, so that's more caramelized. This Festbier was designed to be a little lower in alcohol. Some of them aren't even really that low. The Hofbrauer we're going to try is still over six. More balance, less sweetness, a little more drinkable. The first company that made this more modern example available in the US market was Hofbrauer. So we're going to start with two of the classic Munich breweries, Spaten and Hofbrauer. So Spaten is actually the brewery that designed the style. So they are kind of the originators of this Oktoberfest tradition. Damn green bottle. Yes. So if anyone from Anheuser-Busch is listening, we know you're always avid listeners to the podcast. To send it up the ladder, can we please have this beer not in green glass? Put it in the can. Put it in cans. Everybody switch into cans. Hofbrauer is now available in both bottles and cans. Hofbrauer used to be in green glass and switch to brown. So if you're unaware, we've talked about this in the podcast many times, but one of the most common brewing flaws of this is the light-struck taste. People typically describe it as being skunky. It's a misconception that skunky beer has to do with temperature. It's all about the light. There's a photochemical reaction that happens when a compound in hops interacts with the light and it produces that skunky smell and flavor. I mean, the killer with this too is that if the beer is dark enough, it can filter out the light and theoretically protect the beer, but Oktoberfest isn't super dark, so let's see what this year's Oktoberfest brings us. I mean, it smells like Heineken. A maltier Heineken. It's not as skunky as Heineken, though. I don't think it's... The darkness of it might protect it a little bit more, but I'd like to try it on draft. If you're ever out at a German restaurant, I think near like- Rezis Bierstube. Yes, Rezis, maybe Laschet's. What you're looking for is Marzen. Again, the German word for March. That is how this beer is billed when it's out of season. Next to the Hofbrau, I mean, quite a striking difference. They're starting to get better talking about the Festbier tradition because if you're not geeking out on beer and you think about Oktoberfest, this is how the Hofbrau has been for a long time. People would buy this and be like, what's going on here? This isn't an Oktoberfest beer. Yet, when you taste it, it still has some fuller body to it. Yet, the Hofbrau, ironically, I think, is actually stronger. It is. So the Spaten is 5.9% and the Hofbrau is 6.3%. Geez. Yeah. So. I mean, the Festbier is just, it's much more approachable. Zippy carbonation, I think more than the Spaten. Awesome balance. So, the Hofbrau, 6.3% ABV, 26 IBU. It's made with lighter malt, probably Pilsner would be my guess. They just call it light. And then Munich. Munich is going to be that key kind of bready component. Hercules, Perla and Select hops. Perla is a nice variety that has kind of like a florality to it. Select is most likely Hallertau, Select very traditional kind of that herbal hop character. So again, like when we think of American hops, they've been bred to be like super fruity, super like tropical fruit. I always joke a lot of these IPA's descriptions. It's like fill in the blank with the stone fruit or tropical fruit that it tastes like. Today is going to be for the most part, all old school hops or newer hops that have the same kind of aroma and flavor as old school hops. I often describe those as being like if you were going in your kitchen and you were cooking, it would be all the herbs. Or if you're in the garden and you have things like thyme and sage and marjoram, basil. Dill? Maybe not dill. That's pretty aggressive. But I often pick up like sage and thyme, I think, is you'll find elements of that, even kind of rosemary. You know, rosemary has kind of like a piney. Some of these, especially the newer German hops, like Kerstbruker, it can have kind of that piney-ness to it. Spaten is available in six-packs, $11.99. The originators of the style, again, we would love to see this come to cans. So we get it in its best shape. Hofbrau, be careful, it's 6.3, but it's pretty easy to drink. If you drink a liter of this, you can get in trouble real quick. That comes in a few different formats. You can get six-pack bottles, or you can get four-pack cans. They're half-liter cans, or you can get a little mini keg. It's like a five-liter mini keg, which is to be a nice little time. If you don't want to do the math with five liters, that's either five mugs if you're really going full bore, or 10 if you want to be a little more responsible, you could do half-liter pours. Or if you're doing it by a standard, like 11, 2, it's about 15 beers. I think you just changed my mind on what I'm going to bring to the boat this weekend. They're really a lot of fun. They definitely make an impression when you have a little carrying in a keg on your shoulder. Make sure it's cold though when you bring it. All right, so the next ones we're gonna try are Polliner, because we can do kind of the same experiment here. Polliner is probably one of the most beloved Oktoberfest beers to get, you know, of all time. Their Oktoberfest Mertzen, one of our all-time best sellers, it's what a lot of people equate with the style. They were also one of the first breweries to start exporting their Festbier version. Their Festbier used to be called Wiesen, which means Meadow, which was like super confusing. Yeah, like people thought it was Wiesen, so they thought it was a wheat beer, and it was like, it was a mess. So now they just call it Oktoberfest beer, and they show a picture of mugs full of golden-colored liquid on it. So again, kind of helping Americans out to understand, like, here's the old school, and then here's the new one. So let's open these. The Polliner Oktoberfest beer, again, we're loving this trend of these imports in cans. So Jim brought us one of these half-liter cans. There's so many imports in cans now. It's kind of crazy. Definitely like the best packaging for the health of the beer. No light, no air. Good for shipping, too. Yeah, I mean, just... It doesn't weigh as much. I can't believe it took them that long to figure out the shipping thing. Well, it was a stigma thing with beer and cans. You know, people equated it with, you know, crappier beer. Yeah. Especially in Europe, too. It wasn't just an American thing. Like, cans are usually the, like, absolute budget, like, supermarket stuff that was, like, a dollar a can type thing. So a lot of these venerated breweries have been around forever. They were really slow to embrace cans because they're like, oh, that... It'll make it look like we cheapened up our practices or our ingredients or something. The traditional Marzen from Polliner comes in either six-packs or 12-pack bottles. It's 5.8% alcohol and then it's made with Pilsner and Munich malt. And then the hops are Hercules and Hallertau tradition. Pretty similar, again, to what we were tasting with the Hofbrau as far as, like, recipe goes. What's interesting is that between the Marzen and the Festbier, it's the exact same ingredients. It's just different, you know, proportions. So, same hops, same malts, just they flip the script to use more of the Munich to make the traditional Marzen and make it darker. It's kind of a nice copper color. And then really nice kind of sparkling golden color on the Festbier. Again, sometimes in the past, I've pitched that, like, this modern thing was to make it lower in alcohol, but the Festbier is actually higher. It's 6% and the Marzen is 5.8. But when you try it, the modern one is crisper, more hop character, almost no sweetness, and maybe a little upfront kind of that bready-ness. But what do you think, Lexi? I like the bitterness in these guys compared to, like, you know, some of the local ones that I've had before. I like that this is, I usually think of an October Fest or Festbier as being a little bit sweeter. Yeah, for sure. We're going to open some US. Craft ones next, and that is, I think, more than anything has to do with Samuel Adams. So Sam Adams was, like, their October Fest is their most popular seasonal, and it's how lots of people got exposed to the style. I think their argument was that the older, the, like, truest, really far back recipes, it was a sweeter, more caramely beer, and that they've lightened the style up over the years to make them more drinkable, in part because, you know, this tradition of drinking a liter of them at a time. So a lot of craft breweries took their cues from the Sam Adams October Fest. Ironically, there's kind of been some backlash over that lately because some people don't like October Fest because they think of it as some of these sweeter examples that you mentioned, like, they'll try a locally brewed October Fest and go, that was too rich, too sweet for me, and I'm not interested in it. So as far as what an October Fest tastes like, it can be kind of all over the map right now, as far as the level of sweetness. Some of them are still very caramely, very much have that kind of sweet, toffee kind of flavor, or with this one, even though this is caramel in color, or it's still, as you said, you taste the hoppiness, it's refreshing. I wonder if any of that has to do with the American palette as well. I'm sure it does, yeah. And it also, I think, has to do with what kind of malts these, well, a huge part of it has to do with what kind of malts they're using in the malt bill. So like Munich malt is, it has color to it, but it's still kind of just like a caramel, like a light caramel color. But there's some malts that American brewers are using in their Oktoberfest that are kilned to be darker. Like so they're using like a caramelized malt that definitely looks darker and then expresses more of a richer kind of caramely flavor and color from how long it was in there. So like we'll try, I'm trying to think some examples here. Like we'll pop open an Oktoberfest from Rev and that uses like Munich Dark, Cara Red, Cara Munich, Vienna. So there's a lot of different directions you can go with it. But in Germany, they're all about Z efficiencies. So they try to strip it down, keep it cheap. And again, I think built for speed, built for lots of singing, dancing, standing on the tables. Binging, binging, you're dying on your. Great. Let's go local here. You want to keep tasting them in pairs? I think they might be fun. Yeah, that's fun. A local, and then... Loggers definitely have been trending up. We're always hoping that more and more people give loggers a chance. One of the first breweries and, or major craft breweries that was all about loggers and was really trying to get people to, you know, give very traditional loggers a chance is Victory out of Pennsylvania. And the first beer that they ever brewed when they opened in 1996 was this, their Festbier. So when they call this a Festbier, this is where it can get kind of tricky. Yeah, it's pretty dark. This is a Mertzen. Yeah. But they chose to, you know, call it Festbier just because. So it must have got lost in the translation of, oh, it's an Oktoberfest beer. Well, it's a beer for Oktoberfest, but it's. Well, when you see Marzen or Mertzen, like a lot of people don't know what that means. They don't know how to say it. So I get it. Festbier arguably sounds more charming than just Oktoberfest. Yeah. So next we have Revolution. This is their, they bill it as just an Oktoberfest. I would say this is in the more of the Mertzen old school tradition. Got Ron Swanson on the can here. This beer was a hit in my house last year. Susophone Hero. I mean, yeah. Susophone Hero. It's very popular. Very popular beer. Yeah. They've always done a really good job. Jim over there loves some old school as much as they make incredible modern IPAs and stuff. He makes some excellent lagers and really old school beers. So starting with that rev, let's talk about the malt and the malt bill and that is Pilsner, Vienna, Munich Dark 2, Cara Red and Cara Munich 3. That red color I think is cool from that Cara Red. That's a Weierman malt. If you want to learn about Weierman, go on YouTube and watch Axel. He does great videos. I'm Axel from Vioman Malting. You want to geek out on malts, check that out. The hops in here are Hercules and Saphir. Saphir is a newer hop that you see in a lot of pilsners these days. It has a little bit of citrus, a little bit of florality. It's like one of the key hops in Italian style pilsners, which are really Northern German pilsners by another name. 5.7 percent alcohol, 25 IBUs. This one comes in sixers for the nice price of $12.99. I think I like the Rev a lot better. Victory seems a little thin. I don't know, the Rev just has more going on. A lot more complexity malt-wise than the German stuff, right? Just pretty interesting of what we tried so far. Right. The Victory also tastes like it's a higher percentage than it is. I don't know what that flavor is that I'm getting. I feel like there's a little bit of an underlying resiny hop in there. There we go, resiny. In the Victory. There's a little bit of fruitiness to the Victory one too. Almost kind of like an apple note, which when it's off the charts, it's kind of a flaw. I think here it's probably appropriate. It's almost bordering on kind of like a maple, a orchard fruit kind of maple note to it. The Victory is 5.6. So this malt wise, they do bother to say imported. So that's another thing. Like you talk to brewers and a lot of these German malts, it's an investment, you know, it costs more money, especially the specialty ones. That is worth mentioning and a point of pride with some of the breweries that there's some nice, you know, the maltsters here in the US do a great job at a lot of these places. But just like any other agricultural product, there's, you know, differences in terroir. And then there's practices like Weierman's been around since the mid 19th century. So arguably, they've been doing this for a while. So they're going to have some signature flavors to their malts. So Victory, another thing that's kind of interesting is that they use whole flour German hops. That's super rare. So most of the time, when brewers use malts, they use pellets. So hop cones are highly perishable. They get moldy right away. Also, when you use whole hop cones, they're like little sponges. So they absorb a lot of beer. So you lose more liquid from that and cost more to make it. But there's a few people that are really adamant. They love the tradition. They believe in it. Victory is one of those breweries. And then Sierra Nevada is the... They use more whole cone hops than anyone else in the US. So kind of neat that you really are drinking kind of some old school tradition when you have the Victory Festbier. Rev does an excellent job of balancing. Like there's sweetness there, but there's some bitterness too. Again, that's always kind of the trick is some of these American Oktoberfest can be just a little too sweet. One that's dialed in well should definitely be balanced. Yeah, it's really tasting pretty good. Yeah. All right, so Revolution, six packs, 12.99. Victory, six packs, 11.99. As with all Oktoberfest beers, whether you're listening to this during the season or just enjoying it completely off season, buy these as soon as you see them. This is not an IPA, it's not something that's super fragile, it's not something that you're worried about the hop character falling off in 60, 90 days. Most of these are full on coated at least 120 days. The imports, because they're filtered and pasteurized, they're coated for a year. So if you love Oktoberfest beer and you lament that it only comes out once a year, you can buy these and save them. They have good shelf life, especially from reputable breweries. The German ones, like I said, definitely they're pasteurized filtered, they coat them for a year. They are going to change over time, but for straight up six months, I would say they taste pretty much exactly the same. So if you want to be drinking this in dry January, giving everyone the middle finger, stock up because it'll last. All right, next up, we'll do another local one, and then another iconic American regional craft brewery. We've got Waddle from Off Color. Our good friends at Off Color always knock it out of the park. They've kind of finally acquiesced to the seasonal creep, as I was saying. I like on the description of this beer on their website. They go available in August for some stupid reason. I realize we never talked about them on the podcast, and I think that was part of the reason why, was that we would usually do the Oktoberfest podcast pretty early in the season. Wasn't even out yet. Got an adorable can of a walrus playing an accordion, and a mouse playing a tuba, and penguins. Great Lakes October, just did a little brand refresh last year. It's kind of got a interesting new art to it. Celebrating the Bukalak Hills of Bavaria. Or Cleveland. True. Great Lakes, arguably, they have the most enduring loggers in the history of US. Craft. They've been all about loggers from day one. Their Dortmunder Gold won a gold medal. That's why it was originally called Heisman Lager or something, because the Heisman Trophy is named after someone Heisman that is from Cleveland. Didn't know that. They wanted to celebrate that, then got a cease and desist. So, well, we just won a gold medal for this Dortmunder Lager at the Great American Beer Festival, I think. We just won a gold medal. Suck it, NCAA. Yeah, right. So, then they just changed it to Dortmunder Gold. But that beer is still going strong, whereas we've seen some other great lagers kind of fade in their popularity over time. Dortmunder Gold still kills it. They're Elliott Ness, Amber Lager, it's kind of like a Vienna. That's still around and does well. And then Great Lakes October is definitely one of our most requested Oktoberfest beers every year. You can get it in 12 packs now, too, which is cool. Until now, we've been tasting beers that are pretty much old school traditional hops. This is hopped with Mount Hood, which is a just real sturdy old school American hop. Again, the IBU is low though. I mean, it's 20 IBUs, so it's not like a hop forward Oktoberfest by any means. But curious to see what you guys think. More heft to this one is 6.5. I think I confused my cups. They're very similar in that color. Yeah, it's funny. They're both the exact same ABV and IBU too. I think the Waddle is a little bit lighter color wise. Wow. Yeah, this is crazy. There's a lot of similarities. That's what I thought. Okay, cool. Very similar bears. The off color is made with pills, Dark Munich, Cura Munich, and Cura Pils. The hops in that are interesting too. They're Nugget and Hussbrucker. Hussbrucker is similar to Hollertau. It's named after the region it's grown, which is a little further north in Bavaria near Nuremberg. Nugget though is an interesting choice. That's a nice good. It was released by the USDA breeding program in 1983. It's actually a daughter of an English hop called Brewers Gold. Nugget has a decent amount of oil content that gives a kind of a woodsy, piney character, which some of the German hops do also have that kind of piney, spicy, depending on the variety. Some German hops are more floral, like Hollertau is famously more gentle and floral, but you do have some spicier ones too, like Spalter. And then the Great Lakes, the Malzarturo, Munich, and Carmel 45. So Carmel 45, I think, is definitely what's giving it that deeper, richer kind of golden color to it. Not golden, sorry, like copper. Yeah, amber-copper. Fall. Fall-colored. Yeah. All these beers look like the pictured rocks and how they have all those different waves. Yeah. So I'm glad you brought up fall. So I'm always beating the drum about food and beer pairing. Like Oktoberfest beers go so well with fall flavors. So if you enjoy apple picking and all the accoutrements that come with it, like the stuff that's not good for you. If you enjoy being scammed into apple picking. You can also go to an orchard where you don't have to pick them. You just buy good ones. That's what I do. But apple cider donuts, apple pie, like all the- Caramel apples. Apple butter. Yes. All that stuff, like the apple flavor land goes so well with Oktoberfest beers. However you want to enjoy them, like an actual apple out of hand or an apple cider donut with apple butter on top of it. Yes, that's a good thing. You should try that. Wait, Raj, hear me out. There's got to be a cider place out there that wants to make a cool apple type thing with you, and you should call it Apple land. Apple land? With a couple of different ones. You've got to do it, and it's got little apple guys on it. Yes. I live my own mind in Apple land, quite a bit of the fall. Thanksgiving dinner, again, you got to buy enough Oktoberfest to make it to Thanksgiving, because I've done all these pairings over the years. We tried finding specific beers for specific dishes and all that, but usually how would I like to do now is find beers that work with multiple dishes, and Oktoberfest, because of that caramelized malt character, it pairs so well with any of the Would you say it's the champagne of beers in terms of pairings? How dare you. Champagne goes with everything, man. Yeah, no, it's like the, I don't know, it's something about, it's again, that deceptively balanced and easy to drink yet flavorful. I think that's what a lot of people have been looking for. And again, like I said, some people steered away from Oktoberfest in the past because they were used to pretty sweet ones. And what we've tried, I don't think we've had one yet that I would describe as sweet. Like there's a touch of sweetness to a couple of these, but the German ones were like pretty lean and dry. That caramelized character is just, will make you think of the Maillard reaction with the ham horn. Anytime you're searing things, you know, and getting that nice browning character, that's so synergistic with beers made with these caramelized malts. Two classics. Pick them up. Great Lakes. Available in 12 packs or 6 packs. And then the off color comes in 4-pack 16.9 ounce cams. All right, let's head back to Germany. If we were doing this blind, this is always the one that's the big question mark. A lot of, we're, Lexi, we're about to try what many consider the best Oktoberfest ever made. Yep. Highly debated topic. We've been asked over the years, you know, whenever you work in this industry and you're helping customers, inevitably you get asked, okay, but what's the best? And it's tough to pick the best. Still, magazines always try to do it. Social media. It's always like, what's your top 10? What's your top 5? What gets the highest scores? What's your Rotten Tomato Score? Eyinger is considered by many to be one of, if not the best, Oktoberfest. It is a phenomenal beer. As a brewery, they do not make a bad beer. If you're curious about German styles, they're a great way to learn and taste through various. You could just buy a bottle of every Eyinger and you'll learn what an excellent example of a Weiss beer is, what an excellent example of a Dark Weiss, Oktober, Doppelbach. I mean, beautiful, beautiful beers, highly anticipated release every year. Not located in Munich. Right. Unfortunately, can't serve beer at the official Oktoberfest. They might be okay with that. They definitely build themselves as more like they're brewing higher quality beer. They're not like in an economy of scale type operation. They're not cranking out 12 packs. These beers are available in single half liter bottles or four pack 11.2s. And then the next beer is from Weinstefanner. Also a state owned brewery and it is adjacent to the brewing college. If you've heard of the Siebel Institute here in Chicago, there are still like very highly respected venerating brewing schools in the world. Not a ton of them, but the college at Weinstefanner is one of them. They also have an incredible yeast bank. If you've had someone's Hefeweizen, there's a really good chance that they brewed it with the Weinstefanner Hefeweizen yeast. A lot of breweries use their lager yeast as well in their lagers. So the technical prowess at Weinstefanner is off the charts. They are also make the claim to be the oldest continually operating brewery in the world. Since 1040. Whoa. Yep. Pretty old. Definitely lots of talks about going to visit them on their 1000th anniversary. That would be pretty wild. Yeah. All right. So the Weinstefanner is a Festbier and then the Einger is a Marzen. So Weinstefanner, again, does not make a Marzen like Hofbrau. They were one of the first breweries to export this beer to Americans and go against the grain, if you will, as far as what people thought an October Festbier was. The Weinstefanner is available in six packs. It is 5.8% ABV and 26 IBUs. And then the Einger is pretty similar. Also 26 IBUs, but 5.8. Oh, yeah. Exactly the same. Look at that. Whoa. I didn't even plan this, and that's pretty hilarious. So what do you guys think? I think I could drink a lot of those ones. Yeah, both of them. I haven't gotten to the Einger. I really love the hop profile on the Weinstefanner. It has that kind of herbal grassy thing going on. I don't think I could find what the hop variety is on that. Weinstefanner, you need to be more transparent. A lot of German breweries laugh that Americans are willing to share information. I would argue that there's a lot to the brewing process that if you tell someone what your hops are, it's like they're just going to be able to hit a button and make copy your beer. Come on. Not yet, at least. Yeah. AI is coming. I mean, it could be happening. But come on, Weinstefanner, give us some more info. It's got something like kind of lighter and brighter to it that I like. Einger, beautiful color. I mean, that's really got this cool like light copper, like polished copper. There's like a really soft, rounded nature to this beer that's just like, it's different. It's hard to put your finger on. It's like a little more luscious, a little more plush, integrated, rich, but not sweet. It's deserving of the accolades. This is pretty darn good beer. Yeah, it's a really good. You sip it and you just feel like fall and away. This is a fun one to try to find on draft too. It's excellent on draft and it is a little more expensive. Sometimes it's a good buy when you buy it on draft too. Like they'll price it the same as the other ones, but you do have to pay a little more for this one. So this one comes in four packs. It's $13.99 a four pack for the Eieringer and the Weintraubfahner is the same price but for six. So again, a little more money, but these are phenomenal beers. Definitely treat yourself to both of these. One of the iconic, so when people think of German and even Bavarian food, like brats of course, come to mind some of the heavier stuff. Roasted chickens is one of the main things that they do at Oktoberfest. So whether you're cooking one yourself or just grabbing a rotisserie, Oktoberfest beer and roasted chicken is a must try food pairing. It also does really well with other iconic German dishes, some of the richer ones, things like sauerbraten. Any kind of roasted meat though, like pork roast, that pork knuckle dish called Schweinhoch's. That's another big Oktoberfest thing. This is Lexi's first Oktoberfest episode, so she's not heard Schweinhoch's before because it comes up quite a bit. More than you would think, but maybe not more than you would think. The difficulty to find that cut of meat. You can't find those knuckles. It's hard to find those knuckles. Yeah. You need fresh. You can't get smoked, you can't get cured, you need fresh. Pork knuckles? What did you say again? Yeah. It's not the foot. You've seen ham hocks, right? Of course. It's further up the... Well, Lexi worked in New Orleans, so I assume you've seen red beans and rice. Sometimes people make that with ham hocks as the seasoning meat. Yeah. They use pickled pork or ham hocks. Ham hocks are the bottom of the leg smoked, whereas this is not smoked and a little higher up. I know you're a vegetarian. What can't you eat, really? Yeah, I mean, pork's been bread that basically tastes like nothing. So part of the reason we always wax romantic about this dish is that it actually tastes like something, like it has some flavor, and it is a really popular dish at a lot of German restaurants. So you'll get it at the Bavarian Lodge, and when Hofbrau was around, they served it. And so the places in Chicago have it too, the other famous places like Laschitz. It's also just fun to say Schweinhachsen. Schweinhachsen. I mean, it's quite a presentation on a plate. It's gigantic. But anyway, enough about pork products. But that grilled thing, barbecue, like whether you're grilling veggies, it's harvest season, you're grilling like some nice portabellos or zucchinis. Like these these kind of beers taste really good with stuff off the grill and with barbecue. Our journey has come to the finish line. Again, to iconic American breweries. We have Bells out of Kalamazoo slash Comstock, Michigan. For the first time, we saw Oktoberfest in 12 packs this year. Bells, I would argue, is one of those breweries since they've been around so long. I feel like their Oktoberfest has changed a little over the years. For the better, I think that they've kind of... It's still a Marzen and they write that on the can, but it's a little more balanced. I would argue it's a little less sweet than it was in the past. And then the Sierra Nevada Festbier is for several years now, they started this program where they would collaborate with different German breweries to make a unique Oktoberfest. That's really cool. And it's usually in the more modern, not always, but usually in more of the modern Festbier tradition. This year's, I think, is especially interesting. The brewery that they're collaborating with is called Stortebeker, which is a brewery in, it's on the Baltic Coast, so it's as far north as you can get in Germany. And I guess this brewery during the communism era was not anything to write home about, just really cheap, not great beer, really old brew house. They're making bland beer in black and white Kansas at BIER. But so thankfully, a family purchased the brewery, and since then, it's been one of the most forward thinking, experimental. Germans can be kind of have this reputation as like not wanting to try new beer styles, like not brewing anything like American styles, like no IPA, no any of that, because like there's the Reinhardt's Cabot and stuff. So they're kind of like slow to innovate stuff in their traditions. So you're saying during the communist era, this brewery was nothing to Reinhardt's Cabot. Yeah, exactly. They've since rebranded. Lexi is so mad right now. I'm shaking my head. You can't see, but I'm shaking my head. So their name is paying homage to a pirate from the 14th century. Sure. German pirates. His name translates roughly into to empty the mug in one gulp. How? They're just making stuff up over there. The Germans have a lot of words for... Supposedly said mug that this guy would empty in one gulp was four liters of beer. Back in the day. Stortebeker, that's what pirates do. They booze. But they also talk themselves up a lot. They exaggerate their achievements. His name was Stortebeker. Yeah. That in German means to empty a mug quickly. Yeah. Not just quickly, one gulp. One gulp. But yeah, it is interesting that this... It definitely has this maritime... You go on their website and there's people sailing on what looks like a Viking ship. It's silly. But let's talk about the beer here. So it's 6%. This was brewed at Sierra, mind you, not there. So they collaborated with them. They went to Sierra Nevada and brewed this beer. It's made with Carmel Munich Pale Pilsner malt. And then this malt called Bonlander, which is a malt from Bres up in Wisconsin. The hop bill is pretty interesting. It's Opel, Perla, Spalter Select and Tradition. So a little bit of like newer school German hops and then old school ones. Tradition being one of the old school ones, I assume. Yeah. Okay. Hallertau. So Opel is newer and has like some more florality and citrus. Perla is new-ish, whereas Spalter and Tradition are arguably a thousand years old. So you get a little bit of that like classic herbal, but then with like a little bit of updated. I get a lot of spice out of this, kind of like a woodsy, peppery spice. I'm not getting peppery, but I'm definitely getting like a woodsy situation. The sweetness is there too, though, which is kind of interesting. Like it's got, this is very much an example of having both sweetness and, like sometimes people think like it can only be one or the other. Like this is that bready malt sweetness up front, and then like a good amount of hop bitterness on the finish. Like it's there and it's lasting. It's quite bitter on the end. I like that. All right, and then the Bells. The Bells is made with pale Vienna and Munich. The hops are Polaris and Hirsbrücker. It's got kind of a nice like subtle florality to it, I think, which you get in kind of some of those old school German hops, like Hollertal and Hirsbrücker. Loggered for six weeks, so definitely a little more extended maturation. Five and a half, so won't necessarily cause you to fall off the bench. 24 IBU, so a little less than the Sierra. More kind of in tune with some of the German ones we had. I like that one a lot. It's real bready and delicious. Yeah, it definitely has that like toasted bread quality and very well balanced. Like again, it finishes with some dryness. Like I definitely think you can definitely taste the hops in this, but it's not quite as like hop forward like the Sierra Nevada one is. But super well balanced, I think just like a perfect example of like a really nicely balanced October. I think that's one of those two that you can drink quite a few of. Yeah, for sure, which now that you can stop in and grab a 12 pack of 12 packs, six packs, and then the Sierra Nevada is available in 12 packs as well, 12 packs and six packs. So that's a dozen Oktoberfest for you. Yep. Get out there and get them. So many great options. Like I said, I know it's goofy that this comes out so early, but rest assured, these last, they're not the kind of thing you have to drink the minute you buy it. They'll still be drinking great through the end of September. The actual Oktoberfest celebration, don't forget, starts in September and ends in October. It's all very confusing. Even though it's called Oktoberfest, it starts in September. Beers come out in June. It's called Oktoberfest. You can drink them in November? You can drink them in November. Yep. The celebration starts in September. It's all the months. Yeah. Basically, you should be enjoying these from May slash June to- Like March. Yeah. The German ones are literally coated for a year. You can literally just drink it all year. People lament that they can't. You just need to buy it. The only thing stopping you is yourself. I would say these beers should be in good shape. Anything that we poured today is from a brewery that's super dialed in, has good QC. You'll enjoy these for six months, no problem. I love these beers. Like I said, they're so great for food and beer pairing. Do not be intimidated by that. I'm always trying to get people to try different beers and foods. A lot of people are like, I don't really know what's what or I don't want to- You're not going to make a mistake. Pretty much, it's always going to work to some degree, and you're just going to like certain ones better. Then when you hit on something that you love, that's the kind of aha moment where you go, oh, I get it now. This is why this can be so fun. It made both the beer taste better and the food taste better. If you're into charcuterie platters, this is a great style for that. If you like different meats and veggies and cheeses and crackers, this is an awesome style that's fun to just try with all sorts of different nuts, dried fruits. See what kind of new flavor combos you don't even think you'd fall into. All right. That's our latest edition of We Love October 1st Beers and hope you do too. Thanks again for listening. If you enjoyed this, please leave us a review. Don't forget to spread the good word. Share Barrel to Bottle with your friends and family. Until next time, my name is Roger. I'm Jim. I'm Lexi. Keep tasting. Fine, Hawks.