A Virginian Oktoberfest

This weekend sees the culmination of the ur-beerfest in many people's minds, Oktoberfest. While I have never been to the only Oktoberfest worthy of the name, nor actually do I have any ambition to go - beer festivals being generally not my thing - I do enjoy the Oktoberfest style lagers that are practically de rigueur at this time of the year.

Last year I bought myself a load of examples of the style to do a comparative tasting, only one of which though was from Virginia. Seeing as though our local Wegman's has a reasonable selection of beer, and customers can build their own 6 pack, I did just that, but with only Virginia brewed Oktoberfest lagers this time. The chosen six being:

• Devils Backbone O'Fest
• Blue Mountain 13.Five Oktoberfest
• Legend Oktoberfest
• Brothers Fest Bier
• Smartmouth The Princess Oktoberfest
• Port City Oktoberfest

In the fine tradition of Teutonic efficiency, I will dispense with the waffle and dive on in to my modified Cyclops tasting notes...

Devils Backbone O'Fest

• Sight - amber, burnt orange, full inch of ivory foam that lingers
• Smell - bready malts, a touch of hay, spicy hops, traces of cinnamon
• Taste - bready again, think the crust of a Stollen, muted hop bitterness that fades, clean finish
• Sweet - 3/5
• Bitter - 1.5/5

Not a bad start to the tasting for sure, and I have to admit to bashing a fair few pints of this on Wednesday night in DC whilst at the conference. The body is medium to full, with a slightly slick finish that the hop bite just manages to overcome and make this a really easy lager to drink. As ever, Devils Backbone know how to make a good lager.

Blue Mountain 13.Five Oktoberfest

• Sight - light amber, half inch off white foam, little visible carbonation
• Smell - subtle breadiness, some floral hops, traces of graininess
• Taste - sweet malts, not caramelly just sweet, like brown sugar, floral hops
• Sweet - 3/5
• Bitter - 1.5/5

Fuller bodied than the Devils Backbone, almost voluptuous. The sweetness flirts with the idea of being cloying but the hops bring it back into focus. As it warms though is starts to get a bit flabby around the edges, but still a fine beer.

Legend Oktoberfest

• Sight - deep amber, light red highlights, thin off white head
• Smell - cocoa, milk chocolate, toasty notes
• Taste - toasty, cocoa, nutty, like nutella.
• Sweet - 2/5
• Bitter - 1/5

Not a particularly interesting beer to be honest. The cocoa/chocolate thing was really distracting, and the body was lacking, even veering toward an unpleasant thinness. Lurking in the background was an ickiness that I found really difficult to ignore. Blah.

Brothers Fest Bier

• Sight - dark golden, light orange, inch of off white head
• Smell - grassy hop aroma, suggesting Saaz or Tettnang, some light toast
• Taste - juicy malt sweetness, brown sugar, herbal hop bite
• Sweet - 3/5
• Bitter - 2/5

Again a medium bodied beer, though with a slick mouthfeel that the clean finish just about managed to scrape away. Not one that I would hunt out but decent enough in a pinch.

Smartmouth The Princess

• Sight - light amber, thin white head
• Smell - sweet Munichy malts, floral hops, touch of lemongrass, slight hint of corn
• Taste - well done toast, dulce de leche, floral hop bite
• Sweet - 2.5/5
• Bitter - 1.5/5

Medium bodied with a noticeably slick finish, really lacking a good hefty hop bite and clean lager finish to improve the drinkability, an odd vegetal note became more prominent as it warmed. Nope, not doing that again.

Port City Oktoberfest

• Sight - amber, light orange, half inch off white head that dissipates quickly
• Smell - light toast, floral hops, brown sugar
• Taste - biscuity, touch of crackers, subtle honey
• Sweet - 3/5
• Bitter - 2/5

And a good beer to round out the selection. Rich rather than sweet and thankfully with a nice clean lagery finish that refreshes the palette. In the background were some nice subtle orange flavours going on that added to the complexity of a very nice beer. Yay for Port City!

The aim of this tasting was not to rank the beers, but I have to admit that I would only actively chose 3 of the 6 to drink again, the Devils Backbone, Blue Mountain, and Port City ones. So as Oktoberfest proper winds down this weekend, grab a six pack of one of them, a packet of proper German bratwurst, a tub of Dusseldorf mustard and go to town...prost!