The first year I did this I restricted myself to lagers brewed in Virginia, last year I changed that to include non-Virginian beers that are available in the shops. When I restricted myself to VA beers, I could just do a single sit down flight, whereas last year I did a knock out competition with a final four. I have to admit that I found the knock out approach somewhat onerous, so for this year I decided to have 6 groups of 4 beers, chosen at random, and the winner of each group would go to a final group stage.
The 6 groups lined up as follows:
At first glance, groups 1, 3, and 6 looked to be the most difficult, and so it turned out, with several well regarded Oktoberfest lagers not making through to the final group of 6, which I will write about in a later post, once I have given my tastebuds a day or several off, and a chance to reset by drinking helles and pilsner again.
To choose a winner in each group I decided to combine the Cyclops tasting notes method that I like to use with a quasi-BJCP point approach, which I broke down thusly:
- Appearance - 3 points
- Aroma - 10 points
- Taste - 15 points
- Balance of bitterness and sweetness - 2 points
- Personal score - 10 points
Given the festbier and märzen variants when it comes to Oktoberfest lagers, I judged them according to their respective BJCP category descriptions. The definition of festbier specifically calls out "amber hues" as unacceptable in the colour department, any beer that veered into orange was judged as a märzen regardless of marketing.
Here then are the final standings by points.
1. New Realm - Bavarian Prince (34/40)2. Great Lakes - Oktoberfest (32/40)2. Sierra Nevada - Oktoberfest (32/40)3. Left Hand - Oktoberfest (31/40)3. Von Trapp - Oktoberfest (31/40)3. Benediktiner - Festbier (31/40)4. Ayinger - Oktober Fest-Märzen (30/40)4. Samuel Adams - Octoberfest (30/40)5. Devils Backbone - O'Fest (29/40)5. Warsteiner - Oktoberfest (29/40)5. Edmund's Oast - House Oktoberfest (29/40)6. Port City - Oktoberfest (28/40)7. Paulaner - Oktoberfest (27/40)8. Shiner - Oktoberfest (25/40)8. Leinenkugels - Oktoberfest (25/40)9. Blue Mountain - 13.Five Ofest (24/40)9. Brooklyn - Oktoberfest (24/40)9. Ballad - Oktoberfest (24/40)10. Schlafly - Oktoberfest (23/40)11. Starr Hill - Festie (22/40)11. Brother's Craft - Festbier (22/40)12. Bingo Beer - Oktoberfest (21/40)13. Genessee - Oktoberfest (19/40)14. Solace - Gute Nacht (10/40)
To ensure that the tasting was completely blind, Mrs V picked beers at random from the fridge while I was out of the room, and other than the one litre can of Paulaner as the final beer, I had no idea about what was what until we sat last night and worked out the rankings.
The final 6 though are not to be the top 6 beers by points, but rather the 6 beers that won their respective groups, although this is pretty much what ended up happening, which gives me a bit of a headache. Left Hand and Benediktiner tied for their group, even to the point of having the exact same points for each category, so this weekend I will try and find some more Left Hand and do a beauty contest tasting to decide the winner. If I can't find the Left Hand, then Benediktiner will go forward.
The rest of the final 6 are:
- Ayinger
- Great Lakes
- Von Trapp
- New Realm
- Sierra Nevada
I definitely get the sense that splitting these 6 will be a very difficult task, but we leave that for a few days and another post.
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