Giesinger: Festbier (Germany: Oktoberfest Marzen: 6% ABV)
Visual: Clear bright yellow gold body. Has a middling size of off white head and lots of small bubbled carbonation.
Nose: Vanilla. Caramel. Soft citrus lime. Prickly, moderately bitter hop character. Light chalk dryness. Toffee.
Body: Sweet orange. Light chalk dryness. Caramel and toffee. Slight twix like character. Very milky coffee touch.
Finish: Twix chocolate bars soothed by vanilla toffee. Lots of caramel. Light hop oils. Very milky chocolate drink.
Conclusion: This tastes a lot darker character than it looks. Now, don’t get me wrong, it isn’t stout, or even black lager level heavy tasting, but if I had tasted it blind I would be hard pressed to match its taste profile of this very caramel led beer to the bright clear gold body that it presents to the eye.
There are VERY subtle hints of chocolate and very milky coffee notes around the edges, but that is just what I noticed as unusual, it is not the main course, they are more grounding and sweet notes around the very edged of that big caramel body more than anything heavier. Despite that the combination kept making me think of twix chocolate bars – but you are more likely to get a big dose of vanilla toffee flavours and it is towards the sweeter, maltier end of the lager spectrum.
The other big element is a lovely wee fresh orange character that works that works tidy with the bigger, sweeter notes and keeps it from being too heavy. While not a thin beer, this beer is not as thick mouthfeel as you may expect from my notes above. It is nicely thick, but it still has enough of that lager easy drinking vibe, if less so than most. So, thicker but not thick and it finds a nice sweet spot, no pun intended.
It really is nicely balanced, the 6% abv and thickness means you can only have a couple in a session but the flavor and fresh character over sweetness would make it super sessionable otherwise. A very solid fest beer indeed.
Background: So, Oktoberfest has been over for nearly three weeks now, time to put up my Oktoberfest notes! As always, my finger is on the pulse. This is not one of the big six breweries of Oktoberfest, of which I have done notes on five and tried all six, but a brewery that I have not encountered before doing an Oktoberfest style beer. In fact looks like they have ambitions to become an official Oktoberfest beer, can’t see any news on if they succeeded, so I am guessing not in 2024, so, erm good luck for the future! Grabbed from Independent Spirit who have in a lovely selection of German and Oktoberfest style beers, this was drunk while listening to Left Hand Path: Entombed – mainly as I had just got it, but also as I know Germany has a lovely heavier music scene.
