Gordon Biersch: Marzen (USA: Oktoberfest Marzen: 5.7% ABV)
Visual: Amber gold. Thin dash of white bubbles and moderate carbonation.
Nose: Slightly lemon fresh. Occasional cooked chicken. Dry malt.
Body: Caramelised sugar. Malt. Vanilla and toffee. Apricot. Cheesecake. Occasional cooked chicken.
Finish: Salted toffee cheesecake. Liquorice and dry malt. Honey.
Conclusion: I’ve been getting the oddest flavours from beer over this road trip. In this case a marzen that has salted cheesecake like touches. Not just cheesecake, salted cheesecake. Figure that one out if you can.
Some of you may already have read the main tasting notes and noticed the dreaded “Cooked chicken” element. It isn’t the greatest element, but I would say not to worry overly. While the flavour and aroma is present it is a very small element of the beer, worth noting but not worth writing the beer off for. The malt sweetness and cheesecake elements are much more prevalent and make up the main character of the beer.
It may not be the most complex beer I’ve had on the trip, nor, despite the cheesecake, the most unusual. It does however hold it’s own. It’s a solid marzen with a nice twist. I can’t say it is going to be a favourite beer, but there aren’t any major flaws. The only problem is lack of ambition to reach past being a competent beer. Still, has a very smooth texture and is very easy to drink. Hmm, maybe one flaw, the flavour doesn’t quite hold out to the end of the pint, the last third has some of the subtleties lost.
I do however have a feeling that this beer would complement an actually cheesecake well. Maybe I’ll have to try that
..
..
I was right. It does. If you are going to have it, definitely get cheesecake to go with it.
Here’s to the end of the road trip, hope you enjoyed the reviews, I enjoyed the trip.
Background: The last beer of the road trip of awesome. Well kind of. I brought three beers back so it’s not quite over yet. This was however the last reviewed beer while on the trip. Another of Michael Jackson list of 500 beers to try, and I was getting pretty happy at how many I had found on the trip. This was tried at one of the Gordon Biersch Brewpubs, this one in New Orleans. The barmaid was helpful and as I was experimenting with this and cheesecake she suggested some other of their beers that would go well with desserts. She even poured me a few samplers to try, which was much welcomed. I also got to talk with a few other customers who were asking what OG (Original Gravity) was, to which I attempted a (vaguely correct ) explanation about it being the amount of sugars in the original liquid pre fermentation. Technically it’s the density of the wort, but since the wort is pretty much based on the sugar content I figured it was close enough for a laymans explanation. Oh and I was slightly tipsy at the time, which may also have altered my choice on how technical to go on this. Also I think I may have damaged the camera at this point as I could not get it to focus properly half the time. Either that or I’m just rubbish with a camera.