Another way we entertained ourselves during our annual get-together was to have an “Octoberfest bake-off”. Ron, Max, Don and I each brought a few Märzens (Oktoberfestbier) and did blind tastings.

Well, it wasn’t all blind. We knew what we brought and Ron also knew what each was before we had it. However, it was significantly different from Ron’s Oktoberfest Beer Battle from a couple of years ago.

Our primary conclusions from tasting all these are:

1. Oktoberfest is not our favorite style;
2. Most brewers, at least in the U.S., are extremely close to each other in how their recipes turn out (whether they are “true” to the “real” style is another discussion entirely);
3. Drinking a dozen beers of the same style messes with your palate; and
4. Eating bratwurst in the middle of our tasting may have been the best and the worst idea we had.

Another surprise was how poorly (relatively) our annual favorite of Brooklyn Brewery Oktoberfest did in our rankings.

Our methodology was simply to rate each according to the Unofficial Hop Talk Beer Rating System. We didn’t try to rate the beers based on any official or unofficial description of the style, just how much we enjoyed each.

Here is the final results:
1. Victory Festbier (3.375)
2. Left Hand Brewing Marzen Lager (3.16)
3. Brooklyn Brewery Oktoberfest (3.125)
(tie) Flying Dog Dogtoberfest (3.125)
5. Lancaster Brewing Oktoberfest (3.00)
(tie) Clipper City Baltomarzhon (3.00)
7. Samuel Adams Octoberfest (2.75)
(tie) Paulaner Oktoberfest-Marzen Amber (2.75)
(tie) Atwater Bloktoberfest (2.75)
10. Saranac Octoberfest (2.5)
11. Stoudt’s Oktoberfest (2.125)
12. Weihenstephaner FestBier (1.5)