Oktoberfest "hoppiness"

I am a second round brewer and my AHS Oktoberfest/Marzen is currently bottle conditioning. It has been in the bottles for 19 days now. As any good home brewer would I cheated today and gave one a try.

When I tried it, I was quite disappointed. I was expecting something similar to the Paulaner Oktoberfest, but what I got was something close to the taste of the Oktoberfest, with the hop profile of an IPA. Will this settle down with time, or is it how it will be?

After tasting the abundance of hop taste, I remembered the one screw up I had while brewing. I was supposed to add a half oz of hops at 45 minutes and the other half at 55 minutes. I accidentally added most of the ounce at 45. Does this explain the extra hop taste?

What kinds of hops did you use? You did a 55min addition and a 45min addition? Or do you mean 1/2oz for 15 min and 1/2oz for 5min?

Yes, I meant the 15 and 5 minute. The hops were Pearle and Hallertau. I honestly don't remember which was which, but one of the types went in pretty early in the brew and the other was half for 15 half for 5.

Hop character will apparently age out a bit with time. I'd let it sit for at least another couple weeks and see where it was at then.

I assume this kit is an Oktoberfest Ale, right...as in it came with ale yeast?

A true Oktoberfest is a lager, so you aren't going to match the Paulander style without using a lager yeast, properly maintaining lager fermentation temps (high 40s/low 50s), then lagering the beer in the low 30s for a good 8-12 weeks.

The ale versions get the malt character right, but you miss out on the yeast character and crispness of a true lagered Oktoberfest.

As far as the hops, those are low AA noble hops that don't add that much bitterness anyway, let alone as 15 and 5 min additions. The small error you made may have added 2-3% more IBUs to the brew, but it would be pretty negligable, and probably not even perceivable in the taste. Unless you did something else that you're not thinking of, that's pretty much how hoppy the beer was supposed to be.

Guess you have to call it hoptoberfest!

The hop charge doesn't seem like its too high to me. You added a lot of hop bitterness by boiling the whole charge that long - that is probably your culprit.

TopherM said:

I assume this kit is an Oktoberfest Ale, right...as in it came with ale yeast?

A true Oktoberfest is a lager, so you aren't going to match the Paulander style without using a lager yeast, properly maintaining lager fermentation temps (high 40s/low 50s), then lagering the beer in the low 30s for a good 8-12 weeks.

The ale versions get the malt character right, but you miss out on the yeast character and crispness of a true lagered Oktoberfest.

Click to expand...

Yes, it was supposed to be a lager, but since I don't have currently have laagering capabilities, I used the ale yeast.

As for the hops, I guess I'll just wait it out and see what the final result will be.