It’s September, and time to speak concerning the many names of festbier, the amber beer we get to drink as summer time winds down. : Oktoberfest. Märzen. Vienna. What’s the distinction?
To begin with, the beers Individuals know as “Oktoberfest” aren’t the sort of beer they’re going to be ingesting on the precise Munich Oktoberfest. The beer that has been served – for the previous fifty years or so! – in September at Oktoberfest (that’s actually the way it works, look it up) is not amber in colour; it’s a deep golden lager, malty-dry, with only a nice trace of Noble hop aroma.
It’s eminently drinkable, scrumptious, and is totally “Oktoberfestbier.” That’s what the six Munich breweries which are allowed to pour on the Wies’n (the meadow-like park in Munich that’s the web site of the fest) all name it. No argument allowed, it’s their occasion, their custom, their guidelines. Don’t argue with Germans about beer; they merely received’t pay attention.
What’s the amber stuff we’re ingesting, then? If that’s not what they’re serving in Munich, why can we make it that manner in America? What’s presumably much more odd is that just about the entire German beer labeled “Oktoberfest” or “Märzen” that we import can also be that amber colour. Why?
On this one factor, we’re extra conventional than the Germans. Or extra hidebound, take your choose. The beer on the Wies’n was that amber colour (although there have been most likely lighter-colored beers additionally out there as early because the Nineties). That’s what the American homebrewers and NATO service veterans who began the primary wave of craft breweries determined was Oktoberfestbier, as soon as and ceaselessly.
We stored making the amber stuff, as a result of there’s a powerful tendency in craft brewing to make traditional beer kinds in ‘conventional’ methods. The German brewers realized that we’re solely going to purchase that very same sort. They gave in, and for us, they make it the best way their granddads did. It doesn’t harm that it’s a scrumptious beer that goes properly with quite a lot of our favourite meals: pizza, pretzels, barbecue, roasted rooster.
However what’s the distinction between the totally different beer names you’ll see popping out for Fall celebration: festbier, amber lager, Vienna lager, and Märzen? Actually? Not quite a bit.
Let’s have a look at these names. Märzen is German for “March.” Why? Earlier than the arrival of mechanical refrigeration, it was exhausting to chill boiling wort and preserve clear fermentation in hotter climate. So the Bavarian brewers would brew continuous in March, then retailer the stuff in cool caves and preserve ingesting it over the summer time. This grew to become the beer for Oktoberfest as a result of it was cool sufficient to brew once more, and they’d drink up the final of the summer time shares. As I as soon as put it in one other story, “that’s why August is while you get the beer that’s brewed in March…named for the October pageant that truly occurs in September.”
Festbier or Oktoberfestbier is fairly self-explanatory: it’s beer for the fest. And “Amber lager”? Duh. However what about that final one, Vienna lager? It’s made with a specialty malt referred to as Vienna, as a result of that’s the place it was developed within the 1840s by a maltster/brewer named Anton Dreher. Dreher’s kilned malts developed a reddish-amber colour, and a toffee/caramel taste.
Now that we all know the names, how are they totally different? Seems, not by a lot. Even while you have a look at the definitions, the numbers, written for competitions, there’s quite a lot of overlap. They’re all lagers, all anticipated to exhibit “toasted malt” character (I keep in mind lengthy arguments on USENET beer teams within the Nineteen Nineties over whether or not “toasted character” was even a factor; it seems the “toasters” lastly received, and took over the GABF!), and all falling roughly within the ‘amber’ colour vary.
The classes range considerably on excessive/low ABV and colour, however once more, there’s quite a lot of overlap. I used to be a bit shocked to see that even “American Amber Lager” is especially differentiated by permitting – however not requiring! – a better hop stage. (I’ve bought a fast information to the varied sorts for you on the finish.)
All in all, although, it’s just about what the brewer decides to placed on the label. It doesn’t even should be a beer. There are some ale-brewed festbiers, generally referred to as harvest beers. There was much more of them, again when American craft brewers didn’t do lagers that usually, however they’re nonetheless round. I like them too, and haven’t any drawback ingesting them.
Does it matter which one in all these you’re ingesting? Served chilly, in a hearty mug, beneath timber with good associates and a plate of scorching sausages, pretzels, and cheese with mustard… It’s one of many final connections to the autumn harvest for many of us, a final gasp for outside ingesting until April. Drink the mellow, malty, amber (or deep gold) beer of your alternative, with my blessing. Prost! Zum Wohl!
A Compendium Of Amber Beers – That is how I see it. They largely fall within the 5.0 to six.0% ABV vary. There’s not quite a lot of distinction, and there are going to be ones that don’t match. That’s cool. Have one other.
Aletoberfest – Any malty, amber/brown ale launched for fall ingesting.
American Amber – A hoppier model of Märzen, typically with some caramel taste and a lighter physique.
Festbier – Just about the identical as Märzen. Yeah. It’s Märzen. Is perhaps referred to as Oktoberfest in America.
Märzen – Old skool, long-lagered malty amber lager, launched in late August.
Oktoberfestbier/Wies’n – Deep golden lager, malty-dry, with a touch of Noble hop aroma.
Vienna – A intelligent option to brew/promote Märzen year-round. Barely much less ABV, slightly bit sweeter…or not.
Lew Bryson is the Senior Drinks Author at The Each day Beast. Contributor to Bourbon+, Craft Spirits Journal.
Creator of Whiskey Grasp Class, Harvard Widespread Press (2/18/2020 launch); “To reinforce your information within the magical world of distilling, my good friend Lew Bryson is the right place to begin.” — Colum Egan, Bushmills grasp distiller
One other nice whiskey e book I wrote: Tasting Whiskey, Storey Publishing; “Tasting Whiskey is a e book that I’d have liked to have had shut at hand once I first began moving into whiskey.” — David Wondrich, creator of Imbibe and Punch
