Just in time for Oktoberfest
The New York Times reviews a German restaurant in Bethel, N.Y. which, incidentally, serves Schlenkerla rauchbier, mentioned in my first entry.
This seems like a decent time to run down the Oktoberfests currently crowding my refrigerator:
- Ayinger Oktober Fest-Marzen
Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest-Marzen
Hofbrau Munchen
Paulaner Oktoberfest-Marzen
Penn Oktoberfest
Spaten Oktoberfestbier Ur-Marzen
Weihenstephaner Festbier
I haven’t sampled all of them yet, and I’ll likely be adding more (probably at least Victory and maybe Stoudt’s and Bell’s if I can find them). But so far my unofficial (and possibly temporary) favorite is Hofbrau, which does not at all look like an Oktoberfest should; it’s almost a light straw color, rather than the traditional orange-amber color usually associated with Oktoberfests. The folks at BeerAdvocate seem to think it tastes more like a Helles lager, which I usually like a lot. That might explain my initial high grade for the beer.