While that is not an exhaustive list of the festbiers released by Wisconsin breweries, they are the ones I covered this year. A few are noticeably absent from the list: New Glarus Staghorn, Milwaukee Brewing’s Hop-toberfest, and Leinenkugel’s Über-Oktoberfest, just to name a few. It isn’t so much that I left them out on purpose, or that I don’t have a high opinion of each, they are all very good beers that I usually stock up on this time of year. Staghorn in particular is one of my favorite beers. For this year’s Oktoberfest series I wanted to highlight a few great local breweries which you might not be familiar with. With the exceptions of Black Husky Jodlerkönig and Bull Falls Oktoberfest, each of the beers reviewed has statewide distribution, which was another important factor in choosing the beers for the series. Obviously being based out of Milwaukee, I am going to choose beers that are readily available in my location, or that I can pick up on a trip to another part of the state. Out of the nine beers reviewed, Bull Falls is the only one not available in the Milwaukee market.
So, now I will move on to the part of this that I really am not looking forward to, a ranking of the nine. Whenever I attempt to rank my favorite beers, or favorite beers of a style I feel as though I am trying to pick my favorite child. Sure, some favorites are easy... Favorite football team? Packers! Favorite state? Wisconsin, obviously... But favorite beer, that takes the discussion to a whole new level. Regardless, here it goes…
So, now I will move on to the part of this that I really am not looking forward to, a ranking of the nine. Whenever I attempt to rank my favorite beers, or favorite beers of a style I feel as though I am trying to pick my favorite child. Sure, some favorites are easy... Favorite football team? Packers! Favorite state? Wisconsin, obviously... But favorite beer, that takes the discussion to a whole new level. Regardless, here it goes…
1)
Black Husky Jödlerkönig – Call me a sell out
who loves almost everything Black Husky releases, or mention that Jödlerkönig
is not an Oktoberfest, but this ale interpretation of a traditional festbier is
an excellent fall beer that will leave you wanting to try the rest of the Black
Husky line-up.
2)
Bull Falls Oktoberfest – Coming from one of the
newest breweries on the list, this festbier was dead on, with the right amount
of bready maltiness combined with an appropriate amount of hop bitterness. The malts refrained from coming across too sweet while still being prominent, and both the hop flavor and bitterness were
pleasantly subdued. It’s only a shame
this beer has such a limited distribution.
3)
Central Waters Oktoberfest - A solid all around festbier
with strong bready malt notes in the flavor and aroma. While it was lighter on the toasted malt
notes than many of the other beers in this series, the malty sweetness was right
where it should be, and the hop bitterness served to mellow out the malts but
didn’t detract from the malty nature of the beer. For a bready Oktoberfest with a low level of
toasted malts you would be hard pressed to find a better festbier.
4)
O’so O-toberfest
- A touch sweeter than the other beers in this series, O-toberfest has
moderately strong biscuity malts, with moderate toasted notes. The rich maltiness was well balanced by hop
bitterness, but there was never any doubt that this was a well-balanced, malty
beer.
5)
Capital Oktoberfest – At the time I reviewed it,
I was close to calling this beer the best so far in the series if it weren’t
for the buttery diacetyl in the beer that I had. The beer was almost perfect, with an
excellent maltiness and a nice restrained hop bitterness. I would like to believe the bottle I had was
the exception, but for this beer at this time, I was disappointed to find a
fault in the aroma.
6)
Tyranena Brewing’s Gemüetlichkeit Oktoberfest – Aside
from the caramel notes in this beer, it was right where it needed to be for the
style. The strong malt backbone was
balanced out by a moderate hop bitterness, causing the beer to dry out on the
back end. Toasted and nutty malts added
malty complexity that was on par with beers higher up in these rankings,
however the caramel notes dropped it further down. The floral hops were a little pronounced for
my taste, but they lingered in the background in the aroma and did not follow
through to the flavor, holding to style.
7)
Lakefront Brewing Oktoberfest Lager – I am a big
fan of Lakefront Brewery, and I am kicking myself for ranking their festbier
this low, because most of the time they are one of my go to breweries. The fact they fell so far in the rankings
says more about the caliber of the other festbiers in the state than it does
about their offering. That said, I do
like my festbiers to have less prominent floral notes, which this beer
certainly had in spades.
8)
Stevens Point Brewery’s Point Oktoberfest – Point Oktoberfest, like
Lakefront above it, was a very good festbier.
The fruity malts and floral hops in the flavor drop this one further
down in the rankings than it otherwise would be. I really enjoy floral hops and fruity malts
in many beers, but they seem out of place in a festbier.
9)
Big Bay Brewing Üer Bier – I really
wanted to like this beer, because I would love to support a local Milwaukee
business. Unfortunately however, this
was easily the least enjoyable festbier of the series. It is not nearly rich enough to be in the
festbier category, and while it might pass for a decent Vienna lager, it is so
far removed from the festbier category that I was tempted to not even include
it in this series. Then again, the
brewery claims it is an Oktoberfest, so there is that.
Okay, so there you have it. What I really wanted to do was call places 6
through 8 tied at sixth, but I always hate when someone does that. There is also a fairly large drop-off between
8th and 9th places, but that’s a bit hard to show in a
straight ranking of nine beers because the lowest the last beer can go is last
place. Rankings aside however, the top 8
are all excellent beers and it took me a couple days to figure out how to rank
them. If I spent more time on it I might
mix the rankings up a bit more, but eventually this post has to be posted.
That’s
all for tonight, check back again soon to read about some more great beers!
Ein
Prosit!
