Skagit River Huntsman Oktoberfest Lager

Brewed by Skagit River Brewing Co.
Style: Oktoberfest/Märzen
Mount Vernon, Washington USA

Draught pint at Redbones on 10/24/07
Interesting to compare this one to the Anacortes O-fest immediately preceding this....This one is much lighter, more apt for the style, with a lighter tan-peach appearance and stronger beige head. Little/no lacing. Clarity is high.
A strong sweet-and-sour effect from the melanoidins is felt instantly, in the nose, with a toffee and buttercream sweetness growing steadily behind it. Fruitiness climaxes, with added hop pepperiness giving a light spicy tinge. Bread and dough soften the finish, and there seems to be a more, if very sweet, appropriate array of o-fest qualities here.
But then I take a sip and, while it’s not roasty, or strangely malted, it’s VERY sweet. Sugary/caramelly malts are plastered to the palate, as carbonation works furiously to cleanse. Melanoidins pile on, giving vivid nightmares of death-by-fruits (the hops adding to this as well). Ok, so I’m exaggerating for effect, but in the end, this one seems to fail just like the Anacortes, but for different reasons. While the Anacortes had the wrong malt notes, this one gets them right, but lacks attenuation badly. Rather crude. No alcohol noted.

on tap-pours an off white head and copper/red color. Aroma is medium/dark malt-sweet, fruit, slight spice. Taste is medium/dark malt-sweet, fruit, slight spice, not quite balanced.

Tap - Eastside Club Tavern - Olympia, WA
Aroma – Light malt aroma like this was missing something. Had a very light malt and spice background.
Appearance – Amber in color and clear with a nice head.
Flavor – The flavor was light and missing the overall affect of being an Oktoberfest. This was more like a lgith ale than a Lager. No real big flavors to experience.
Palate – Wa nice and easy to drink but the overall lager Oktoberfest affect was missing
Overall –I think this was over sparrged and just was missing some of the deep Oktoberfest flavors.

Tap at Fremont Oktoberfest. Copper color. Sweet caramel malt aroma. Toasty caramel and nutty flavor with some sweetness followed by a dry crisp finish.

bottle. very hazy/dirty copper pour with tan head and lacing throughout. very spicey aroma. roasted malts go in and out. give way to sugar but finishes strong. bitter bite. spice. bit metallic and light in the body. wouldn’t get again.

Draft at the Barking Dog. Pours a deep mahogany-tinged amber. Thick moussy greyish head. Nice c-hop on the nose, sitting as the pudding in a cloud of nicely restrained malt. No caramel tsunami here, and more’s the pleasure. Maybe it’s not really an o-fest. Maybe it’s not something you should tell your friends from Bavaria about when they come over. But it IS really good as a food/session beer. Familiar caramel and toffee malt pleasures, but subdued the way they probably should be. There’s hop balance, too. It tastes like there are a full four ingredients in this beer, which is a problem too many o-fests don’t solve. Plus, it’s from Skagit River, and it’s well-balanced. And, bless ’em for their triumphs, that’s saying something. It’s a little shoddy to compliment a beer for what it isn’t, but navigating the potholes of a style successfully is part of the brewer’s art. This is a great little drink-any-month-of-the-year beer. No October ghetto here.

An Oktoberfest? huh...very unusual. Smoke wafts from the freshly poured draft version of this Skagit beer, which is promising, but it innevitably clashes with the unusually pervasive fruity esters that come out of nowhere. Weird...there are hints of so many things usually associated with Oktoberfests (corn, wheat, pie spices) -overly sweet and unbalanced. There are some great reviews for this so I wonder if their ouput varies, but I also wonder if Skagit just tried too much with this one

Very thick head on a cloudy orange-copper beer. Spicy aroma of malt and pepper. Malty spicy flavour. Hint of nutmeg and pumpkin. Pepper finish. The beer did not work well for me.