Augustiner: Oktoberfest (Germany: Oktoberfest Marzen: 6.3% ABV)
Visual: Bright yellow gold clear body. Medium sized white bubbled head. Lots of small bubbled carbonation to the body.
Nose: Brown bread. Light bitterness. Light peppery character and light sulfur.
Body: Banana syrup. Brown sugar. Palma violets. Touch of malt drinks. Brown bread. Dry toffee. Peppery.
Finish: Palma violets. Lightly oily. Toffee. Light peppery character. Malt chocolate. Lightly earthy.
Conclusion: This is probably the most robust Oktoberfest I have had – it has a slightly higher abv that most of the style that I have encountered and you can feel it in the more malt led body, with toffee and banana notes against a light peppery bitterness, enhanced by just a touch of oiliness.
It means that it isn’t as clean and easy drinking as most Oktoberfests, but also means that I am really enjoying it. I dunno how well the extra weight and abv would go down drunk in liter steins at the festival itself, but had here in my room it is exactly what I am looking for.
It gains a lot of bready character in there as well as time goes on. Early on it has a palma violets style that calls to the more Czech hops and banana from the malt that makes it quite sweet, but as time goes on it builds on the peppery notes that exist, and with that bready character and a light earthiness it becomes much more savoury late into the game.
I would say it is more exciting early on, but the change in style over time makes it much more manageable to drink while still keeping hints of what came before.
Its not perfect, it could get rough over time i’d guess, but it is the most interesting Oktoberfest I have had so far.
Many thanks to Tony for getting me it!
Background: Over the years I have managed to try five of the six mainstays of the Oktoberfest, however the sixth – Augustiner, has always eludes me. I was this many years old when I found out that is because the Augustiner Oktoberfest is not generally imported into the UK, if you see it, it is likely someone manually brought some crates of it over. So, anyway shortly after finding that out I found out Tony was over in Germany for … Oktoberfest. So I pleaded with him, and he kindly brought me a bottle back. Many thanks, you are a prince amongst people. This is that bottle. Music wise I went with Godspeed You! Black Emperor: G_d’s Pee AT STATES’S END!. Yes that is its real title.
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