Oktoberfest

Bottle from Half Time. Pours copper with a beige head. Somewhat bready aroma with some saaz pungency. Near med body. It is mild bready, and there’s a nice amount of (I think) grass. Certainly tingles in the mouth.

Sweet bread malts, caramel, a touch of spice. Overly sweet bread malt finish.

Imported from my RateBeer account as Brooklyn Oktoberfest (by Brooklyn Brewery (Kirin Holdings)):
Aroma: 7/10, Appearance: 4/5, Taste: 6/10, Palate: 5/5, Overall: 13/20, MyTotalScore: 3.5/5

3/10/2011 on tap @ Spuyten Duyvil, Brooklyn (2011-508)

Clear copper red beer, creamy off-white to yellowish head, bit stable and adhesive. Aroma: fallen autumn leafs, mocha, cellar, yeast, green banana; MF: ok carbon, full body. Taste: malts, grains, citrus and grapefruit, bitter spices, rotten fruits, very nutty, toast. Aftertaste: some citrus, bready.

Bottle after moving my cousin into new apartment. couldn’t see coloration due to drinking straight from bottle head frothy head in bottle. taste is of malt, bread, some tobacco. good body as i prefer a fuller oktoberfest like this. pretty nice.

As it’s that time of year, I thought it would be good to pick up a six pack of this seasonal beer. I’m glad it’s only once a year, because I’m not really feeling this. It’s straight roasted malts, nothing more and nothing less. No (if any) hop flavor, no sign of any yeast...just pure malts in both aroma and flavor.

Bottle as shown. Pours a copper amber with a medium creamy beige head that lasts awhile. The aroma is a bready malt with caramel and spice. Decent spotty lacing on the glass. Medium mouthfeel with a bitter malt with caramel and grain. Easy to drink, a good Marzen from Brooklyn.

Draught at MacGregors in Henrietta. Nice ruddy brown color. Faint amber malt aroma, but a rich malt flavor, with good caramel and a spicy, peppery hop finish. Nicely done; subdued but flavorful.

Pours an amber color with a very quickly dissipating head. Caramel and fruits are all over the nose. Beer itself is slightly sweet, leaves a little sugar in your mouth when you drink it. Mostly just heavy on the malts without an extraordinary amount of complexity, but I guess Oktoberfests are supposed to be easy to drink and easy to forget about mostly. I don’t know if this beer was quite easy enough to drink.

Updating this rating with a beer from...
October 2009 Beer of the Month Club, 11/8/09 (Old Rating was 3.2)

Aroma: The aroma is lightish, but gives off some caramel, bread/grain, light hops, and a slight bit of berries too
Appearance: It pours a clear amber-orange color that just looks like autumn, small head, and some light lace
Flavor: A nice flavorful fest beer, has a good roasted malt flavor with some nice sweet bread characteristics too
Palate: This one has a medium body with a pretty decent mouthfeel, drinks really nicely, medium carbonation
Overall Impression: I hadn’t had this one in a while until I got it in the mail from the Beer of the Month Club (thanks a lot for sending me another beer I can buy locally by the way...) This is a pretty good example of the Oktoberfest style. Sometimes I forget, when I drink these unimaginative fest brews that it actually can be a pretty good style. This one did a good job of reminding me, and for that I’m going to boost my rating a bit, a really solid fall beer that fits the season very well.