Oktoberfest Saturday

Got bored this morning so I decided to invite a couple friends over for the afternoon NFL game (Redskins/Giants... yawn) and an Oktoberfest tasting. The Oktoberfest beers I picked up were



1) Spaten Oktoberfest
2) Ayinger Oktoberfest
3) Paulaner Oktoberfest
4) Weihenstephaner Festbier
5) Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfst
6) Samuel Adams Octoberfest

In the past I have only had 3 of the listed beers (Spaten, Sam Adams, Paulaner). This season I have only had the Spaten (very good) and Karl Strauss (forgettable), both on tap. I'm curious to see how these match up against each other in a side by side tasting.

UPDATE: So we just finished a couple hours of good Oktoberfest drinking. I took a few shots of the beers though its very hard to describe each individual one, let alone the very subtle places they differ.

The Ayinger Oktober Fest-Marzen was one of our favorites. It had a real sweet smell to it that I couldn't exactly describe. It was much more sugary malty-sweet in the aroma than the others. This started out fairly light in taste, lots of biscuity type "light" flavor but I think it was too cold. As it warmed up a lot of sweetness of the malt came out.










Paulaner Oktoberfest Marzen was a much more toasty type Oktoberfest. The malt had a little bit of a bite to it. From this bottle I sensed a little off flavor (maybe mishandling?), but a lot of the sweeter malt still came out a bit along with that toastiness.










Hacker-Pschorr's Oktoberfest was a very tasty one. This seemed to be more of a combination of the previous two. A little bit of sugary sweet taste along with some toasted malt. It went together pretty well and was nice to drink.











I liked Samuel Adams Octoberfest a lot last year and liked it again even more this year. It has much more of an "edge" to the flavor. The malt seems to give it more bitterness than the others but there's also some sweetness there of course, which is what I expect in all oktoberfests. There is also more of a hop presence in this, albeit still very light, compared to the others. It just seems like they pack more flavor into this than others.








I didn't like the Spaten Oktoberfest last year in the bottle, at least compared to Sam Adams, but the ones I've had on tap so far this fall were very good. This bottle was also quite good. Probably one of the smoothest mouthfeels of all them, with a nice subtle taste that doesn't overdo it. It's very easy to drink, and has enough flavor to keep you happy. This was much less carbonated than the Paulaner, another reason I thought it was better.









The Weihenstephaner Festbier throws you off a little bit with the color, but then again maybe (probly?) they aren't aiming to make a strict oktoberfest/marzen style beer. This was very good, a lot lighter in the malt characteristic but it has a certain sweetness to it that is very good. It does have just a hint of what I would call a "light lager" feel to it, but it has so much more.

A bunch of really good beers overall. Although I didn't like the Paulaner from this bottle as much, the very first one I had out of a bottle a couple years ago was fantastic, and the time I had it on tap last year was probably my favorite oktoberfest of that season. It's really for me to describe the flavors in the oktoberfests, even after reading what I should be tasting from the BJCP guidelines. However, my favorite of the day would have to be a tie between Spaten and Sam Adams.