Fat Head's Oktoberfest

Right now, just about everyone has an Oktoberfest out. Our friends at Sun King do a great Oktoberfest, that they've just started canning. I reviewed it last year and gave it a mediocre review, but that was based more on inexperience with the style.

Oktoberfest beers, or Marzens, are a beer that I've been working to gain an appreciation for. Marzens are traditionally a Bavarian lager that's brewed in the late stages of winter to spring and tapped in October. The BJCP describes the Oktoberfest beer as having "initial malty sweetness, but finish is moderately dry. Distinctive and complex maltiness often includes a toasted aspect. Hop bitterness is moderate, and noble hop flavor is low to none. Balance is toward malt, though the finish is not sweet." When I reviewed the Sun King Oktoberfest I was looking for more sweetness, and I was wrong. My bad! Based on Sun King's batch canned this year, it's totally spot on.

Fat Head's is a relatively new brewery to Indiana, that comes from our neighbor to the East, Ohio. I fell in love with their Head Hunter IPA earlier this summer, and when I saw them put out an Oktoberfest, I had to give it a try. The beer pours out a crystal clear amber color with a nice off-white head that lasts until the last drop. The aroma is cereal and caramel with just a hint of sweetness. It tastes like caramel and toffee, but with a crisp clean finish. There is a buttery flavor that goes throughout the beer.

In my last Beer MBA class with Ron Smith we talked about how a lot of German breweries do this on purpose. In the states we consider it a mistake (at least the BJCP does). The buttery flavor comes from the yeast of the beer. Normally it's allowed to be reabsorbed, but to get that buttery flavor you have to stop the brewing early. It's really common in Chardonnay wine. In beer, this also adds to a slippery mouth feel that almost gives it a syrup like feel.

I am really getting on board with this style, at least I'm trying to. I love the cleanness of the beer, and the flavors really do scream fall. Of the four or five that I tried this month, Fat Head's was my favorite. I liked what Sun King put together and Schlaflly's was fine, but a little bit boring. Victory's was pretty mediocre, but was very true to the style. This one by Fat Head's really seemed to hit all the notes that I was looking for. I give it a solid four.

Tailgate Crap Beer Challenge

After the Colts regular season kickoff against the Raiders yesterday, I wanted to provide some knowledge for this season's future tailgates.

We all prefer craft beer, but sometimes you end up with a domestic lager, and sometimes you end up with a crappy light domestic lager. It happens. College parties, dive bars, and of course one of the biggest spots for light lagers are Colts tailgates. You can bring anything canned, from Sun King to Two Brothers, but your friends probably will end up bringing a cooler full of one of these.

To try and help all of our wonderful readers, we took it upon ourselves to do a blind taste test of some of the most common and readily available domestic lagers. There was a time before I started drinking craft beer that these brews were commonplace in my fridge, coolers and hands. Hopefully you can learn and grow through our suffering and make an educated decision when you say yes to a beer while waiting for the Colts to kickoff.

We picked up five full bodied lagers and five light lagers. The full boddied brews were: Miller Genuine Draft, Budweisser aka Bud Heavy, Coors Banquet Beer, Old Milwalki's Best, and Pabts Blue Ribbon aka PBR. The light brews were, Miller Lite, Bud Light, Coors Light, Busch Light, and Natural Light.

The Little Lady blindfolded Me, O-Dawg and the Professor. We knew what brews were avialable and we knew if it was a full bodied lager or a light lager. Once we were blindfolded the Little Lady put them in front of us and we gave it a rating of 1 - 10 (we decided that more detail was needed than we get in our standard 1-5 scale). 

Probably not surprising since I grew up in a Miller family, I was able to pick out the Miller Light and give it the best possible score. When it comes to the bigger beers, I was pretty surprised that I picked Coors. O-Dawg found NatiLight (you can take the boy out of the frat, but sometimes you can't take the frat out of the boy) and Coors Banquet Beer to be the least offensive, while the Professor was happiest with Coors and Coors Light. No one was shocked about the Prof's score, because it is rare that there isn't a sixer of Coors Light siting in his fridge.

Overall the best rated brews were Coors in the full bodied category and Coors Light in the Light category. None of us really think that these are amazingly flavorful beers, but we did decided almost unanimously that they were the least offensive, and if you are going to be grabbing a beer that you don't like, that may be your best option. 

When trying to maximize your tailgate enjoyment, make sure you are drinking these brews as cold as possible. The stupid mountain indicator on a Coors can is pretty helpful, because as these brews warm they really, really don't improve. Warm Busch may be the most upsetting thing I have ever put in my mouth. 

The Drunk Dog Days of Summer

Beer has always been brewed and consumed on a seasonal basis.  It's natural.  Birds fly, cats hate dogs, and a grown ass bearded man doesn't drink an imperial milk stout after mowing the lawn in 95 degree weather.

As natural as seasonal brewing schedules are, I thought I had a good handle of what constitutes a good summer beer, but after haunting a summer of BBQs and get togethers, I found that what I thought would be the usual warm weather culprits were as varied as styles of ale.

In my curiosity, I've been asking everyone I know, from cicerones to bros what there favorite hot day summer beer are.  Below, I will break down the groups they fall into:

A Hick on Vacation: This moniker belongs to the wonderful beverage of a PBR with a lime wedge.  Shitty beers with limes in them have always been a favorite of mine.  It's light, it's quaffable, and the lme cuts through whatever shitty beer you put it into and gives it a bright citrus lift.  This is my, as well as the majority of hard workin 'Mericans favorite grill out bevie.

The Pale Wheat: Of the craft beers, I overwhelmingly saw American Pale Wheat Ales dominate this summer.  Beers like Three Floyd's Gumballhead, Lagunitas Lil Sumpin, Sumpin, and Bells Oberon.  In America, it seems like this is becoming the big summer brew.  It's pushing out what used to be staples like Wit and Helles beers.  Mass produced lagers may dominate the world, but American Pale Wheat Ales are taking over firework filled, smoked meat summers.

IPA is a Year Round Brew: Even after an afternoon of sweaty yard work, or a few hours of slogging snow off of the driveway, a good IPA always sounds good, especially if it's session-able like Schalfly Can Sessions IPA, or Founders All Day IPA.

An American on Vacation: Kolsch has seen a huge revival this summer with national and local breweries churning out their attempt at a German staple.  This unique lager has captured the American tastebud, and it's technical brewing process has peaked the craft brewers' curiosity.  The New York Times even had an article about its popularity.  There is also the usual cadre of Witbeirs from Blue Moon to Omegang Wit to sate that sweet tangy palate.

Well, That's Weird: Finally, the surprises of the summer were Sours.  I realize that sours are becoming insanely popular and that they involve fruits, but I didn't really think that people would be so excited about killing these funky sweet tarts.  Berlinerweisse style beers are a solid summer choice.  Bells Oarsman is a six pack easy to pair with any grilled meat, or sun soaked sweat-fest.  The absolute weirdest beer I received in response was Monk's Flemmish Ale, a favorite of mine on a cool fall night, but after hauling fifty pounds of mulch... no thanks.

I realize this recent summer weather has been more conducive to a Porter than a refreshing Kolsch. If you have lived in Indiana long enough you know that this means once August is in full swing, we will be in the 90s til Halloween.

Black Crown

Everyone saw the Superbowl adds just like I did. I'm positive that everyone had the same thought... "That can't be any good... can it?" 

Budweiser is trying to get on board with more craft beer style beers. They have picked up people like Goose Island (for a whopping $38.8 million), while doing things internally to add more lines that appeal to today's beer drinker like Bud Light Platinum and now Black Crown. The thing Anheuser-Busch needs to realize is that you can't take the craft out of a craft beer and get the same result.

I will preface this with the fact that I'm a Miller guy when it comes to my beerpong, gameday, and raceday drinking in excess. I don't have any major problem with Bud, in fact I loved their tour out in STL (check it out if you haven't).

Black Crown was as expected a whopping disappointment. It is 6% abv with approximately 180 calories. It pours out a honey golden orange that is perfectly see through. The head is hardly noticeable but a light even white lacing sits on top of the beer right after the pour.

The beer smells like honey and caramel, very heavy on the sweetness. The taste mirrors the aroma. It has a strong honey flavor with serious hints of a caramel and toffee. There is a lot of upfront corn sweetness as well. I found it to be almost sticky sweet, and that's saying something because I love a nice Russian imperial stout. It lacks the typical crisp dryness of an American style Lager. There's absolutely no hop flavors in this brew. It has a long lasting sweet flavor with nothing to really cut it off other than a slight hint of alcoholic heat. There's not a lot of complexity, but the good thing is that makes it pretty unoffensive. 

This seems like what you would get if you took everything daring and innovative out of a craft beer. It's like this was brewed by committee to make sure that no one from any demographic was offended by any flavors or ingredients. It's better than most other Bud products, but this is not a craft beer. I am a bit embarrassed that I even got my hopes up.

I will drink a High Life over this any day of the week. I give it a 1.5

Stiff Upper Lip

Creation: Stiff Upper Lip
Style: Brown Lager
Masterminds: Sun King Brewery
Location: Downtown Indianapolis, Indiana
ABV: 4.9%
IBU: 30
Hops:
Availability: Seasonal 2012, Draft ONLY, Month of Movember
Drinkability: Great tailgating beer
Awards:

"The Official Beer of Movember Indy. Stiff Upper Lip is a brown lager with a toasty malt base, just enough hops to keep it honest and a crisp lager finish."  Sun King Brewery

Served Cold: right out of The Bräuler. Pours with a light amber color with minimal head.

Very subtle carmel sweetness, cereal malt nose. It shouldn't put off any self respecting man, but don't be shocked if it isn't life changing.

Starts off with a clear crisp lager taste that has a toasty maltness to it. I would drink this over other lagers I have had.

Finishes with the usual clean crispness that the red blooded American male has come to accept with tailgating lager beers...

Leaves the mouth with a slight sweet tartness that gives way to the toasty malt characteristic noted earlier. It sticks around for almost a minute.

Serve Warm(er): On second thought, don't.

O-Dawg: 2.5

Postmortum:
Stiff Upper Lip is an every man's beer. Not too hoppy, not too malty, crisp & clean with a taste profile any man could drink. That being said I think it is a great beer for the month of Movember!!! Please have a pint/purchase a growler and a koozie/T-Shirt to help support Sun King's Movember efforts. Cancer kills... I have had too many friends & family members affected by cancer in it's many and varied forms to not assist in finding a cure/raise awareness. Carry on Mo Bros and Mo Sistas!

The Big Guy: I like big rebuttals and I cannot lie...

OK, now this may not have been life changing but it had a great balance of sweet malty goodness, with a hint of smokeyness and a bitter hop finish. IBUs were respectable for a brown lager. Sweetness was nice. Maybe not going to completely change your life, but most beers won't, if you're normal. If you don't like this beer you are supporting cancer.

I give it a 4.

Professor Beer:

A solid brown lager, though nothing extraordinary about it.

Though I'd give them an extra point during Movember.