Fall Beers = Best Beers. What's Your Favorite Fall Beer Style?

[3toes]

Oktoberfest. Because of this thread, I had to have one last night.

Just harvested my hops yesterday. Columbus and Cascade went crazy. Fall brings me to a Brown. Bought SN O’Fest this week. Pretty malty this year. Thought it was decent. I miss their Anniversary Ale. I know whatever I make will have Columbus bitterness and Cascade in the whirlpool. Lol
I’ve never brewed a pumpkin. Still looking for the right commercial example I guess.

Seirra's O'fest is almost always near the top of the list for commercial ones for me. The last couple years Left Hand Brewing's O'fest has been fantastic. Check it out if you can find it.

 

[GPNewBrew]

I live near Houston, so my seasons are “warm”, “sweaty/sticky”, and “hot as hell”. Through the sweaty/sticky and hot as hell periods, I usually brew blondes, Wheats, and crisp ipa’s featuring “c” hops. As we enter the warm fall and winter months, I’ll turn to more malty, flavorful beers, like Irish Ales, ambers, nutty browns, and probably witbier or Hefe’s, as I like those all year long. Whatever I do, I usually brew half batches (2.5 gal) and brew often, to provide lots of variety through football season

 

[jcav]

I love a Munich Dunkel lager, so malty and smooth for the fall season. A good porter and brown ale are also nice and a Belgian Pale Ale. I make a really good pumpkin ale which everyone around here requests I have on tap from October through Thanksgiving. So many good styles for the fall but those tend to be on my fall brewing list.

John

 

[3toes]

I love a Munich Dunkel lager, so malty and smooth for the fall season. A good porter and brown ale are also nice and a Belgian Pale Ale. I make a really good pumpkin ale which everyone around here requests I have on tap from October through Thanksgiving. So many good styles for the fall but those tend to be on my fall brewing list.

John

My man, now THAT is a good idea.

I've got a roadtrip with some buddies for a football game in mid November that they want me to brew a batch for... I'm thinking a Munich Dunkel would be a great choice.

 

[Schlenkerla]

Schlenkerla Rauchbier....

 

[Chorgey]

I like a good Marzen/Oktoberfest. Victory's Festbier is really tasty.

 

[kmarkstevens]

I'm a week or so from harvesting my own hops. How do you add them ...do you bruise them or crush them in any way or just dump the whole hops in your boil? Ive never dry hopped anything but with the harvest of Mt Hood and Crystal Im about to have , I am considering it.

I've done a half dozen or so and this is my humble opinion.

• Pick. You might want to rinse to get the bugs and dust out.
• most pundits say 1 oz pellets = 6 or 7 ounce of fresh hops
• its a crap shoot to know how bitter they will be, therefore I
• dump in a lot. Last weekend I picked 2# of East Seattle Goldings.
• boiled probably 1.5# 60 minutes, 1/4# 15 minutes and 1/4# 5 minutes

My learnings

• you can use some commerical hops as well just to guarantee minimum bittering (but personally I want just my homegrown)
• taste it and if not hoppy enough then do a dry hop or a tea with commercial hops
• I found drying my homegrown wasn't that much of a pain but didn't really give any real terroir and took up freezer space
• pick a recipe based on the hops. For example, I like a low gravity wheat beer with tettnanger. Therefore, I'm going to do a tettnanger fresh hop wheat beer when those ripen a bit later this season. Goldings went into an English bitter.

hope this is helpful

 

[Lefou]

Oktoberfest. Because of this thread, I had to have one last night.

The Paulaner and Weihenstephaner festbiers will be hitting local shelves in the next few weeks. Been saving those gift cards just for that. The Wiesn is my favorite, hands down, of any commercial beer out there. I like their Maßkrug so much I got two of them, just in case I can't locate one.

 

[wepeeler]

I really dig amber ales in the Fall. Long Trail ale is a Scottish ale that is one of the tastiest to me for the time of year. I emailed them in an attempt to clone their Hibernator, and they gave me great feedback for my recipe. It came out great. It may have been my favorite home brew to date. Scored 39.5 in the last competition, which may or may not be telling. But it's always on rotation for me in the Fall.