Brewery Website: http://www.abita.com
Type of Beer: Marzen / Octoberfest
Alcohol Content: 5.40%
Beer Review -
Appearance: Pours a crystal clear golden amber with about two fingers of off-white, fluffy head. Head retention only stuck around a little while before relaxing into a thin film. Sadly there wasn’t much lacing to speak of.
Smell: Soft and bready. The usual Oktoberfest suspects are there – bread/cereal grains, malt and yeast but they are not easily picked up on. While this smells sweet and grainy, everything seems a bit too subdued.
Initial Taste: The taste followed the smell pretty closely at the beginning with a nice sweetness from the caramel malts and cereal grains. Thankfully the hops came through with a needed bitterness to help cut the cloying malts. Again the flavors were there but everything had a washed out flavor as if it had been watered down. Finish was a little dry and bitter.
Thoughts: The Abita Brewery, located in Abita Springs Louisiana, brews its beer with water from artesian wells in Abita Springs making it rather unique as no other brewery has claim to such water. Whether or not this really makes a difference in the beer is up to you. Personally I’ve always liked Abita and their fall seasonal is no let down. While it won’t do much for the hop heads or big flavor lovers among us, there is enough character to keep this beer at the top of their sales charts. I think their biggest sell with this particular beer is the fact that it’s extremely sessionable and easy for new craft beer lovers to drink. Would I buy this again? I doubt it. This is not a slight to the beer, there is just too many other great American style Oktoberfests out there that DO meet my hop and flavor requirements. But don’t just take my word for it. Go out and try this for yourself and let us know what you think. Cheers!
Brewery Website: http://www.abita.com
Type of Beer: Märzen
Alcohol Content: 4.50%
Beer Review -
Appearance: Pouring down the center of the glass gives this beer a very nice white two finger head. Color is a very vibrant clear orange amber with medium carbonation. The head recedes fairly quickly leaving behind ok lacing.
Smell: Scents are pretty light. Some grains, some sweet malt and a little bit of caramel.
Initial Taste: Clean and crisp this beer has a very nice flavor to it. Some soft graininess up front that gives way to a nice firm (and surprising) hop character. The hops are balanced very well by the crystal malt adding caramel and toffee flavors. This beer finishes extremely smooth and somewhat sugary sweet.
Thoughts: Having been a fan of Abita for a long time I expected nothing but the best from their highest selling flagship beer – Amber. This beer is meant as a session beer and delivers exactly that. With this style of beer you expect some sweetness but what Abita does to make their unique is adding a bit more hops than one might find in a German Marzen. Easy to drink and super smooth it’s no wonder this is Abita’s most popular beer. The flavor is light enough to pair with most foods and does very well all by it’s lonesome. Highly recommend for your next beer session.
Type of Beer: Märzen / Oktoberfest
Alcohol Content: 5.10%
Beer Review -
Appearance: Nice light mahogany color with thick two finger white head. Head lasts almost entire beer but lacing isn’t that great. Very good looking beer!
Smell: Sweet malts with a little hops and grain added in for good measure. Smells a lot like other beers in the marzen style. A nice clean smell that is quite appealing.
Initial Taste: Not too bad. Very smooth sweetness of malts matched very well with a spicy hoppiness. Very little bitterness in this beer but JUST enough to balance out the sweetness of the malts that make up the core of this marzen. The flavor is sweet but light enough to keep on drinking. Aftertaste is a subtle lingering sweetness.
Thoughts: What a surprising beer. I didn’t have much hope for this beer when before I first tried it. Being made by Michelob I just assumed it would be like the rest of the American watered down brews like Budweiser and Miller…but boy was I wrong. This beer is one of the smoothest beers I’ve ever had the opportunity to drink. Michelob has done a great job in making a smooth, highly drinkable, German Marzen beer that does not fail to deliver. There are other Marzen beers that represent this style a little better…but none as easy to drink. Definitely my favorite beer from the Michelob lineup. Highly recommend.
Type of Beer: Marzen/Oktoberfest
Alcohol Content: 5.90%
Beer Review -
Appearance: Clear amber color with some carbonation but not a whole lot. Thin white head that left nice lacing.
Smell: The initial smell is one of strong hops mixed with sweet malt. Some skunkyness.
Initial Taste: It starts out kind of sweet but the bitter hops quickly overpower the malty sweetness initially tasted. Bitterness is expected when drinking an Oktoberfest beer but this was above the average.
Thoughts: Spaten is a very respected beer company which claims title to making the very first Oktoberfest beer. While I may not care for this beer I urge you to try it for yourself, it is a favorite of German’s and Oktoberfest partiers world-over. Not my favorite Oktoberfest beer. While this is a good beer and is even better when served on tap…the bitterness is a little much.
