I thought of Octoberfest about a month ago and decided to brew a moctoberfest. Followed an Octoberfest recipe but fermented it with WY1056 American Ale Yeast at 70 degrees for primary. Then cold crashed and have had it at 40 degrees in my kegerator. It’s now ready to keg. I wanted it for September.
I had read the seperate descriptions of Marzen vs Festbier. And decided to go with the Festbier description. Marzen being the amber lager that all the companies label as Octoberfest and sell in the fall - Festbier being more lighter gold color and a revised version of a Helles recipe that is actually sold under the tents in Germany. And only 6 breweries are licensed to brew beer for Octoberfest. Paulaner being one of them, noting the recipe posted above.
I recently bought a couple six packs of Festbier and found some companies (won’t name names) are labelling the amber stuff as Festbier.
The description I provided was for Paulaner’s Marzen (amber). They do also make a Festbier (they call it the Oktoberfest Wiesn in the US) which is excellent as well!
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