We at Mashing In continue to honor Fest Season this week by taking a look at the 2016 Oktoberfest Festival Lager collaboration from Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (Chico, California) and Mahrs Bräu (Bamberg, Germany).
Last year, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. began a new approach to the annual release of their Oktoberfest. Instead of revisiting the same beer recipe each year, the brewery now works in collaboration with the finest brewers in Germany to create one-time only releases that pay proper respect and homage to the Festbier style. This 2016 release of Oktoberfest was brewed with the help of Mahrs Bräu. Located in Bamberg, Germany, this “family owned and operated business, run with conviction and passion,” has been brewing beer with “Character” since 1895. Combing countless years of brewing knowledge, representatives from both Sierra Nevada and Mahrs Bräu decided to brew up an “authentic version of the festival beer . . . deep golden in color with a rich malt complexity, but with a noticeable spicy hop character from the use of the nearly forgotten Record hop varietal.” That description alone is enough to whet my appetite, so let’s grab a glass and get to some Tasting Notes!
Tasting Notes for 2016 Oktoberfest Festival Lager from Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. & Mahrs Bräu
Appearance: As this 2016 Oktoberfest Festival Lager fills the glass, it is obvious that it differs from the subject of last week’s Tasting Notes – Oktoberfest from Cigar City Brewing (click here to read up on that one) – by being an offering that is a lighter, more blonde representation of the Festbier style’s history. This one presents itself as a rich gold in color. When held to direct light, it then glows with hues of brighter golds and straw yellows. The body has an immaculate clarity and displays a carbonation presence pulsing rhythmically in a few locations along the glass. A little over a finger of intensely white foam built off of the pour. It clings with determination to its initial site, leaving sizable chunks of lace at the mouth of the glass. Because of this, the head falters to a thin top cap after just a few sips. As you can see from the photo above, it is truly a sight to behold.
Aroma: Surprisingly, lager yeast greets the nose first with that clean earthiness that we all seem to associate as that archetypal, “that’s beer!” characteristic fragrance. A light malt presence works its way forward with crackery notes and a dollop of honey. The hops then saunter in casually to finish things off with delicate earthy, spicy and fruity tones. The overall aroma is by no means dainty. It is blatantly foreshadowing this beer’s full intentions.
Taste: The malts turn up first with gently sweet notes of grain, cracker, and simple breads. The malt and grain presence may be light, but it is by no means shy. They are here to shine and are held up by a pronounced lager yeast note that gives the drinker a full on Pils-like experience. This is all accompanied by a soft hop character putting out grassy and spicy notes along with just a whisper of fruity tones in the background.
Mouthfeel: This lager is light in body, but it wants to push itself closer to medium. It has a generous carbonation level that tickles the tongue and throat. On the palate, it is crisp with just a touch of playful sharpness. The sweetness of the malts seems to vanish just as quickly as it hits the taste buds. At 6%, the ABV does make itself known a bit with some warmth turning up on the throat and in the belly. The aftertaste is just some lingering light grains.
Final Thoughts: Stay with me here while I paint a picture for you. You are driving down a country road with the windows down to soak in everything that this beautiful day has to offer. Your travels take you by a farm that is in the process of harvesting grain. As you pass, you notice a presence that is filling the air. This is more than just the hearty, clean aroma of freshly cut grain. No, this is an indescribable phenomenon that permeates and saturates all-encompassingly: a smell in your nose, a taste in your mouth, a flood of memories in your mind, etc. Nostalgia. This is something you have felt before, but it is almost as if you are experiencing it once again for the first time. Losing yourself in this realization and whatever images this experience has conjured up in your mind, you cannot help but grin, slow down just a bit and fully take it all in before the moment passes.
This beer is that experience in a glass. What I mean is that it is obvious that Sierra Nevada and Mahrs Bräu wanted to create the cleanest, most quintessential of lagers when they approached this 2016 Oktoberfest. From the first sip, they want your experience with this lager to somehow be both virginal and familiar. That first sip, although new, is processed as a memory. This is a beer that makes you feel like you may have had it before while still coming across with a level of craftsmanship that you have yet to encounter during your craft beer journey. If you are looking for a simpler description, we can push verbosity aside and say that this is a beer meant to quench the thirst of the beer connoisseur and the everyman. A beer that is so refreshing and clean in flavor that it will never have the chance to go warm in 2 liter steins at Oktoberfest celebrations everywhere. In summation, it is a beer that can be as complex or as simple as you want it to be. Prost!
Double Jack Double IPA – “With Double Jack, we amped up our signature Union Jack IPA to create an aggressively hopped, flawlessly balanced and dangerously drinkable imperial IPA. Double Jack opens up with bright grapefruit and tangerine American hop aromas, courtesy of liberal dry hopping with Amarillo, Cascade, Centennial and Simcoe. Undertones of stone fruit are revealed upon first sip, followed by the essence of blue basil and pine. A sturdy pale and crystal malt backbone brings balance to high hop intensity.” ABV – 9.5% IBUs – 85
Opal Farmhouse Ale – “Opal is an unfiltered interpretation of the classic saisons that originated from the 18th century farmhouses of southern Belgium’s Wallonia region. In true agrarian beer fashion, Opal is loaded with rustic grains and spicy Belgian yeastiness, with a hazy namesake opalescence in the glass. Into this mix comes a dimension of dry-‐hopped brightness, layering in notes of fragrant citrus and tropical fruit. The result is a rootsy, rustic saison that brings down the farmhouse, merging Belgian tradition with West Coast style.” ABV – 7.5% IBUs – 35
Wookey Jack Black Rye IPA – “A riff on the familiar Black IPA style, Wookey Jack is gnarly on the outside yet refined on the inside. Malted Rye and a dash of Cara Rye impart a spicy grain quality to the palate, while double dry-‐hopping with Citra and Amarillo hops brings a citrusy dimension to the aroma profile. The brewing team also claims to have incorporated a bit of “Wookey Dust” into the recipe. The beer is black in color, but if you close your eyes and taste it, you’ll say it’s a true IPA. Wookey Jack is unfined and unfiltered to retain its woolly natural texture and character.” ABV – 8.3% IBUs – 80
There is no denying that the India Pale Ale is by far the most popular beer style in the U.S. right now, and Sierra Nevada hopes that Tropical Torpedo IPA – when it is released at the start of 2017 – will act as that perfect introduction to “new drinkers entering the craft beer market via the IPA.” With the use of the Hop Torpedo – Sierra Nevada’s proprietary dry-hopping device -, brewers coax huge tropical fruit notes of mango, papaya and passionfruit out of the hops employed in the recipe for Tropical Torpedo IPA. The finished IPA comes in at an easy drinking 6.7% ABV and 55 IBUs, and absolutely no fruit was added during the brewing process.
These Florida breezes carrying fleeting cooler temperatures certainly call out for the flavors and styles of fall. I will wisely heed this call by taking a look at Oktoberfest German-style Festbier from 
Mashing In 