Brew Notes: Oktoberfest!

It's Oktoberfest time! But you don't brew them in October - they're actually brewed in March and lagered over many months. So yep ... this is a late, retrospective post on this year's Oktoberfest beer.

I wanted to brew a Märzen this year just for the heck of it. I’m not a big fan of lagers in general, but since the Barneys and I got together to do a Cream Ale, I decided to repitch the Cream Ale yeast cake. Which means that yes, I cheated. I used a mix of lager and ale yeasts, fermented it at middle-of-the-road temperatures under pressure, then lagered it.

Grain Bill 

85% Pale Ale (US) 

4% Caravienne Malt 

4% Caramunich Malt 

4% Abbey Malt

3% Acidulated Malt 

Hops

28g Perle @ 60 mins

28g Mt Hood @ flameout 

Yeast 

Repitched yeast cake from Beer Is A Vegetable 

(Mix of Saflager 34/70 and US-05)

Mash

68C for 60mins 

Fermentation 

15C x 10 days under 15 PSI of pressure, then 

18C x 3 days (diacetyl rest), then 

2C x 1 month (lagering) 

Tasting Notes

Tasted after 1 month of lagering. 

Pours a deep, golden-copper color with a good persistent off-white head. 

Aroma is predominantly that of a bready maltiness, but I did pick out some fruity notes and slight medicinal phenolics. I thought that the phenolics contributed a major fault in this beer, but the Missus could only pick it out when I kept pushing her in that direction. 

There is an initial perception of malty sweetness, but it gives way to a moderately dry finish. Again the maltiness is there, more bready than toasty. There is still a perceptible hint of the alcohol levels in this beer, which I think further lagering will smooth out. 

Mouthfeel is moderate and supports the malt backbone well, which helps to prevent this malt-forward beer from being cloying. 

Overall, given the young age (for a lager) and fermentation characteristics (again for a lager), I feel that this is a really decent Märzen. It probably isn’t good enough to place in front of a BJCP judge though, given the phenolic and estery faults. I’ll lager it for a few more month before re-tasting; time (and lagering) can really ease quite a bit of these faults. 

The Missus loves it so much though that I think I’ll have to redo this one to perfect it. A few changes that I’ll probably make:

• Make doubly sure I dechlorinated the water (maybe that’s where the phenols came from?) 
• Use just Saflager 24/70 at double the cell count 
• Start fermentation at 13C and ramp up to 16C over 3-4 days under pressure