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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Tasting with the Times: Oktoberfest!

One last post for September: I was lucky enough to get invited to participate in another New York Times beer tasting panel, and the story's out in tomorrow's paper...which you can read today. Until it's tomorrow, at which time you'll be reading it, um, today. Then. Tomorrow. Go read it now.

I don't talk much about these sessions: that's Eric Asimov's job, and he does it well. We tasted 24 beers, blind, and then talked them out. I will say that there were a larger number of "in-style" beers than usual, which I found interesting: have American brewers picked up the torch and decided to keep this "more traditional" than the Germans? Maybe. Meanwhile, get those liter mugs: Pros't, baby!

6 comments:

Scoats said...

I had some Hooker Oktoberfest last week, and hey zeus, it's a really tasty beer, my new favorite. However I didn't think it really hit the Oktoberfest style. It seemed like a fantastic dunkel to me, reminding me a lot of Anderson Valley Summer Solstice or Mexicali Dark.

Anonymous said...

Lew, If you can say without irking people, what were the "worst" ones? I'm kinda curious.

Lew Bryson said...

Definitely can't say, bill, that's one of the rules of the panel. Sorry.

Scoats, there was a lot of discussion about just what the Ofest 'style' was. I'll let it go at that, except to say that it's often about which beer we like more rather than stylistic lockstep.

Anonymous said...

Understood,

can you list the beers tasted, I don't quite count 24 in the article.

Its merely curiousity, I have my preferences too and I'm kinda wondering about the range that you folks had to taste.

Lew Bryson said...

Can't talk about them either, Bill. We don't say which ones don't make the cut into the second round of tasting. Not completely sure of the reasons, but it's not my rules, it's theirs. Sorry.

Anonymous said...

i was at a resterant where hofbrau was the housebeer and someone ordered the oktoberfest and it was the light color and the guy thought he got the wrong beer but from reading you and joe sixpack i explained what was going on and he said ok . then the bartender said yeah thats what i hear . now the guy a week ago drinking mich ultra on ice i said nothing he was too far gone