There are certain beers that signal the changing of the seasons.

Pumpkin ales get all the attention when September rolls around, but for beer drinkers who prefer malt to pumpkin spice, few styles announce the arrival of fall quite as effectively as an Oktoberfest. And when that Oktoberfest comes from America’s oldest brewery, it carries a little extra historical weight.

Yuengling Oktoberfest is the seasonal Märzen-style lager from Yuengling, the Pottsville, Pennsylvania brewery that has been brewing beer since 1829. It is a beer that occupies an interesting space in the American beer landscape: decidedly more flavorful than a standard American lager, but restrained enough to remain an easy-drinking fall beer.

The result is a malty, moderately sweet, amber-colored lager that doesn’t try to reinvent Oktoberfest. Instead, Yuengling largely embraces what makes the style work in the first place.

Oktoberfest by Yuengling Brewery

The Beer at a Glance

Beer: Yuengling Oktoberfest
Brewery: Yuengling Brewery
Style: Märzen / Oktoberfest Lager
Origin: Pottsville, Pennsylvania
Appearance: Deep amber to copper
Aroma: Toasted malt, caramel, light bread crust
Flavor: Toasted bread, caramel, Munich malt, subtle hop bitterness
Body: Medium
Carbonation: Moderate
Finish: Clean, malty and slightly sweet
Best For: Cool evenings, football season, Oktoberfest celebrations, and fall drinking

Appearance

Yuengling Oktoberfest pours a handsome amber-copper color, sitting somewhere between a traditional pale lager and a darker Vienna-style lager.

Against the light, the beer has a reddish-gold hue, while the body remains reasonably clear. A creamy off-white head forms quickly and leaves behind some respectable lacing as the beer disappears.

It looks exactly like what you want an Oktoberfest to look like.

There is nothing flashy about it. No unusual color. No hazy appearance. No gimmicks.

Just a good-looking amber lager.

And sometimes that’s precisely the point.

Aroma

The aroma is primarily about malt.

There’s toasted bread, lightly caramelized malt and a touch of graininess. Given a few minutes in the glass, the beer develops a pleasant bready character that calls to mind toasted crust and lightly browned bread.

There’s also a faint sweetness underneath it all.

The hops are considerably more restrained. You might pick up a very subtle herbal or earthy note, but this is fundamentally a malt-driven beer.

That’s appropriate for the style.

A Märzen isn’t supposed to smell like an IPA.

Taste

The first sip brings exactly what the appearance and aroma promise: toasty, slightly sweet malt.

There’s a pleasant combination of bread crust, toasted grain and caramelized malt. The sweetness is noticeable without becoming syrupy, and there’s enough bitterness toward the middle and end of the sip to keep the beer from becoming cloying.

The flavor is fairly straightforward, but that’s not necessarily a criticism.

Yuengling Oktoberfest isn’t attempting to overwhelm the palate with layers of exotic ingredients. Its appeal comes from the interaction between malt sweetness, toasted grain and restrained bitterness.

There’s also a subtle nuttiness lurking underneath the malt profile.

The finish is relatively clean, with the caramel and toasted-malt flavors lingering for a moment before fading away.

And then you’re ready for another sip.

Mouthfeel

The beer has a medium body with moderate carbonation.

It’s substantial enough to feel like a proper fall lager but remains highly drinkable. There’s no heavy viscosity or thick sweetness weighing it down.

That balance is important.

Oktoberfest beers can sometimes become overly rich, particularly when brewers push the caramel and Munich-malt characteristics too aggressively. Yuengling keeps things relatively controlled.

The carbonation gives the beer enough crispness to remain refreshing while allowing the malt character to stay front and center.

How Does Yuengling Oktoberfest Compare to a Traditional Märzen?

Yuengling’s Oktoberfest sits comfortably within the broader American interpretation of the Märzen/Oktoberfest tradition.

Traditional Märzen beers tend to emphasize rich German malt character, toasted bread, moderate sweetness and restrained hop bitterness. Yuengling’s interpretation follows that basic blueprint while presenting it in a particularly approachable package.

It isn’t an aggressively complex lager.

It isn’t intended to be.

Instead, Yuengling has produced the sort of Oktoberfest that works particularly well for people who want a flavorful seasonal beer without having to think too hard about what they’re drinking.

And that’s a legitimate strength.

Food Pairings

This is where Yuengling Oktoberfest really makes sense.

The combination of toasted malt, moderate sweetness and restrained bitterness makes it an excellent partner for hearty autumn foods.

Try it with:

• Bratwurst and sausage
• Pretzels with beer cheese
• Roast pork
• Schnitzel
• Burgers
• Grilled chicken
• German potato salad
• Roasted vegetables
• Sharp cheddar
• Smoked meats
• Chili

The malt sweetness also makes it a particularly natural companion for foods cooked over a grill.

And, of course, there’s nothing wrong with pairing it with a giant pretzel while watching football.

When Should You Drink Yuengling Oktoberfest?

This is very much a fall beer.

It’s the kind of beer that works best when the temperature begins dropping, football is on television and summer’s lighter beers start feeling a little less satisfying.

It would be equally comfortable at an Oktoberfest celebration, a backyard fire pit, a tailgate or a quiet evening at home.

One of its greatest virtues is versatility.

You don’t need a special occasion to drink it.

But it also doesn’t feel out of place when you do have one.

The Verdict

Yuengling Oktoberfest isn’t trying to be the most innovative Oktoberfest beer on the market.

And honestly, it doesn’t need to be.

Its appeal comes from execution rather than experimentation.

The beer delivers the essential characteristics expected from an Oktoberfest-style lager: toasted malt, bread crust, caramel sweetness, moderate bitterness, medium body and a clean finish.

For craft-beer enthusiasts accustomed to heavily hopped IPAs, barrel-aged stouts, pastry sours and other boundary-pushing beers, Yuengling Oktoberfest may initially seem almost conservative.

That’s because it is.

But conservative isn’t the same thing as boring.

There’s something satisfying about a beer that knows exactly what it wants to be and simply does that job well.

Yuengling Oktoberfest is malty without being heavy, sweet without becoming cloying, and flavorful without sacrificing drinkability.

It’s an approachable Oktoberfest for people who may be new to the style, while still offering enough malt character to satisfy drinkers who simply want a dependable fall lager.

Final Rating: 3.75 out of 5

The Beer Thrillers’ Take:
Yuengling Oktoberfest is a dependable, highly drinkable American Märzen that delivers toasted malt, caramel, bread crust and just enough bitterness to keep things balanced. It may not challenge your palate, but that’s not what it’s here to do. This is a beer for crisp evenings, pretzels, bratwurst, football and the unmistakable arrival of autumn.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for a flavorful but approachable Oktoberfest lager that won’t overwhelm you with sweetness, bitterness or alcohol, Yuengling Oktoberfest is an easy recommendation for fall drinking.

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Thursday night was supposed to be Trick or Treat night. It was October 31st to boot, so the townships that celebrate Trick or Treat on the 31st should have been trick or treating, and the townships that celebrate on the Thursday closest to the 31st – should also have been celebrating Trick or Treating….. but, unfortunately, a huge massive thunderstorm decided to disrupt all of those plans.

But in a terrific show, Al of Al’s of Hampden and Pizza Boy Brewing Co. decided to offer a treat rather than a trick to all the local kids. When most of the local areas either moved trick or treat to Friday night (Nov. 1st) or outright cancelled it, Al stepped up and offered free pizza, free chicken tenders, free fries, and free candy for kids, having basically a large buffet set up for kids in costumes in the open seating patio area of Pizza Boy.

It was a wonderful, full night at Pizza Boy. Tons of kids in costumes roamed about while parents sat and drank and watched either the Thursday Night Football game on a few televisions or one of the kid Halloween movies on the big screen or smaller screens from Disney or Nickelodeon.

Kids came dressed up as clowns, Frankenstein’s monster, the fork from the newest Toy Story movie, Stitch, a Fox, nearly every member of the Avengers (except of course nobody was dressed up as Hawkeye), a lumberjack, or Wednesday Adams. (Just to name some of the various costumes I saw.)

It was a terrific gesture shown by Al and the brewery and restaurant. And the kids (and parents) had a fantastic time. Hard to beat free pizza (for kids), free chicken tenders, free fries, free soda, and free candy… but I think I have a beer that did just that.

Beer: St. Thomas
Brewery: Pizza Boy Brewing Co.
Style: Stout – Pastry
ABV: 11%
IBU: No IBU
Untappd Write-Up: ST. THOMAS, PATRON SAINT OF COFFEE STOUTS, an 11% pastry stout infused with @stthomasroasters coffee at a rate of 3 pounds per barrel and over 5 pounds of fresh vanilla beans. Decadent and velvety with an intense aroma of freshly brewed coffee. With such a serious coffee profile we had to balance it with an astronomical amount of specialty malts for a rich, luscious body of liquid burnt marshmallows, fresh vanilla, roasted caramel, coffee and MORE COFFEE.

This was an extremely delicious beers. Other than Sunny Side Up, Pizza Boy isn’t really known for their stouts, but when they do them, they absolutely nail them and they are completely and wonderfully fantastic. And this is just example 1 in that category. Its full, its heavy, its boozy, its complex, its very coffee, its very bold, beautiful, robust, tasty, and delicious. Let’s break it down and get into it.

Appearance is as dark black as they come. Black hole sucking out color black; outside of the nice foamy head, it has a very rich, creamy, light brown to white head with spaced and varied sized bubbles. Great carbonation. Great dark stout color, great colored head.

Aroma is like walking into a Starbucks (or what I imagine it does, because I make sure to stay out of those hipster dens). Extreme notes of coffee immediately, even from a distance. There is some milder notes of caramel, vanilla, and some sweet malts. I didn’t pick up any marshmallow despite what the Untappd description for this gives. Perhaps its just covered up by the insane amounts of coffee? Who knows, but I do know this smelled delicious before I even got into it.

Taste is very complex. A lot going on with this stout once you get to tasting it. There is the obvious extreme coffee, but there is so much underneath and underlying that. There is the vanilla that smooths it, there is the sweet malts, caramel flavoring, and it is nice and boozy and heavy. You feel the 11% right away with this one. The coffee gives it a very strong bitter that the vanilla then comes in and smooths and softens before finishing it out. There is a bit of light marshmallow taste, but not too much, and it gets hidden and folded in and swallowed up by the other complexities of this beer. That is certainly not a bad thing, as the complexity of the stout works for it perfectly. The bitterness giving away to sweetness, the booze lighting a fire in your stomach, the heavy mouthfeel, the bold flavors, all works perfectly to provide a very deep, rich, and complex and powerfully flavorful beer that is tremendous and wonderful to sip on. Especially as five thousand screaming and carrying on kids go running around and it starts pouring like crazy and thundering and rumbling and lightening lighting up the sky.

This should certainly be a must try for anyone who loves stouts, high-ABV beers, pastry stouts especially, coffee, or just trying deep, rich, tasty new brews.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 4.1 (as of 11.2.19)

I would just like to thank Al, Al’s of Hampden, and Pizza Boy, for doing this for the kids, and for the community. It was a wonderful gesture that meant a lot to the kids – especially the younger ones who missed out on getting to do their normal night of trick or treating. I know the kids enjoyed it, I know my kids did, and it was greatly appreciated by both kids and parents alike. It is great when breweries and people step up like this to help out their local communities, absolutely love it.

Ok, and so far so good, keeping up with my November challenge. Two days, two blogs. So far so good right? Only 28 more days to go! (And no… thats not a pun intended or a threat/worry about Zombies coming….. ….lets see if anyone gets that reference, if you do, leave a comment about it.)

Until tomorrow everyone, keep drinking, enjoy your weekend, and hope you all had a wonderful Boo-zy Halloween!

-B. Kline

Last Thursday I got to have lunch at Tattered Flag, and what a delicious lunch it was. I ordered the Shepherd’s Pie and the Fatum: Member Berry. Both were delicious, both were tasty, both made for an excellent lunch time treat.

This is the final day of October, some may know it as October 31st, or Halloween, or All Hallow’s Eve, or the day before November, or in the case of 2019, the day after the Nationals won the World Series (….ugh….); but it is the final day of October, so I am shooting out a review here in the morning, and then planning (fingers crossed, hopefully… you never know…. life is crazy… yadda yadda yadda, the clam bisk [Seinfeld joke for the win]) another beer review posting after taking the kiddos around for Trick or Treat tonight (…once again, hopefully the storms hold out and we get to do that).

For November though, and in celebration of it being NaNoWriMo, I am tentatively – hopefully – possibly – fingers crossed again – wanting – going to do a post a day. Write a new post, every day, and post it each day; as kind of my nod to NaNoWriMo, so stay tuned for that. Be sure to follow us to stay up to date on that, and to see if I can actually hold myself accountable with that given the hectic life I have.

So moving on from there, lets get down to this.

Beer: Fatum: Member Berry
Brewery: Tattered Flag
Style: Sour – Fruited
ABV: 6%
IBU: No IBU
Untappd Write-Up: This Tart ale was conditioned on Blueberries, Strawberries, and Aronia Berries.

Lets start off with this, its a beautiful beer, and the food to pair with it (Shepard’s Pie) was fantastic and beautiful too. The name is great and perfectly goes with the style and the fact that it uses blueberries, strawberries, and aronia berries. For those of you unfamiliar with the name, its from South Park and one of the better creations they’ve had in recent years. While the show has tailed off a bit in recent years, PC Principal and Member Berries is probably their best newest additions and aspects of the show.

Also, for those of you unfamiliar with them – myself included – aronia berries: “Aronia is a genus of deciduous shrubs, the chokeberries, in the family Rosaceae native to eastern North America and most commonly found in wet woods and swamps. The genus is usually considered to contain two or three species, one of which is naturalized in Europe ” (Source: Wikipedia)

Now that we did our knowledge and information passing on (and knowing is half the battle!) … (thanks GI Joe), we can get get down to the review.

Appearance is a dark purplish hue. It does have a glowy look to it under certain light, but mostly its dark hued, purple, and with an unfiltered look to it. Not thick or smoothie thick or styled, but unfiltered, and with the dark purplish look to it, it is mostly opaque unless a bright light shined on it.

Aroma is very heavy berry, you can pick up all three of the main berries mentioned and used in the beer. You get very powerful notes of blueberry and aronia, you get this slight faint whiff of strawberry at the end that kind of softens the other two berries. I want to guess maybe a possibility of some lactose or vanilla as there is a hint of it, but when drinking, there is no taste of it, so not sure if its included or not.

Taste is very tart, puckable, but not too bad as to be untasty or detrimental. All three berries get equal playing time on this field, with maybe strawberries having the least flavorful impact (probably for the best for me, as I’m not a huge strawberry person). The blueberries are a very nice sweet and tart, not a heavy funky, the strawberries provide a bit of light flavor mostly at the end of the beer, and the aronia berries provide equal measures of sweet and sour, almost making a kind of lemonade-ish taste to add as a backbone to the beer. The three berries combined really makes for an interesting and tasty combination and concoction.

My Untappd Rating: ****.25
Global Untappd Rating: 3.81 (as of 10.31.19)

And for those foodies out there wondering, the Shepherd’s Pie was to die for. Wonderful and very tasty (though I was called a lamb murderer quite a bit by my partner at the table).

The Member Berry probably won’t be on tap long at Tattered Flag, so if you want it, make sure you jump on that and stop in and try it out soon!

And as I said, we are kicking off November big here at The Beer Thrillers. To celebrate NaNoWriMo month I am planning on writing an article, blog post, beer review, brewery review, whatever, every day of the month – that means a minimum of 30 new blog posts – and thats just from me. No counting or saying what J. Doncevic will do. I have also reached out to several fellow beer bloggers through WordPress’s Reader and contacted them to see if they would like to do some guest writing (as well as us doing guest writing for them). If there’s one thing craft beer and craft breweries have taught me, is that there’s nothing wrong with collaboration and it just makes the community stronger. So be on the look out for all of that. Also be on the look out soon for me and J. Doncevic’s first joint-post about the 3rd Anniversary party at Boneshire Brew Works.

Also as a note, I walked by the future home of the Rubber Soul building today in Hummelstown. The progress is getting more and more noticeable. Their doing a new roof, their doing the flooring now, after having gutted the building, put up new doors and windows, etc. They also now finally have a banner announcing that it is indeed in fact Rubber Soul Brewing on the fence surrounding the property. According to the Hummelstown’s The Sun newspaper they are looking at a January target date for opening (that seems a bit ambitious with today being Oct. 31st and that giving them only November, December, and January itself to finish the building and brewing, but we’ll see).

Make sure to be like, follow, and subscribe, and do all that fancy stuff here and on all of our social media pages – FaceBook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc, so you can keep up to date on our goings ons!

Cheers all!

-B. Kline