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Taking a hint from the fellows at Guys Drinking Beer, this year I observed Fall Beer Freedom Day—it’s the beer-nerd version of not wearing white after Labor Day, except in this case you don’t partake of Oktoberfests or pumpkin beers till then. (This is easy with pumpkin beers, because most of them are nasty.) Since FBFD I’ve tried ten Oktoberfests, though only one of them, Spaten, would qualify by the narrowest possible definition. I haven’t yet made it to the versions from Hinterland, Central Waters, Brooklyn, or Goose Island, or to the 5 Rabbit Vida y Muerte, though I’ve spotted them all around town. Great Lakes, Victory, and Ayinger were mighty fine. Left Hand was acceptable and Leinenkugel’s was way too butterscotch-sweet. The Sam Adams Octoberfest, which I drank at an office “happy hour,” was pretty mediocre, which makes me wonder if the corpocrats cheaped out and bought leftover bottles from last year’s batch—a friend with gold-plated taste buds has called it “one of the unsung heroes of American craft beer.”
So far my three favorites have all been local: Metropolitan‘s Afterburner, Revolution‘s Oktoberfest, and Two Brothers‘ Atom Smasher. Doubtless this is partly because I’m not sufficiently expert with German styles in their pure forms to be effectively snobby about how they’re “supposed” to taste. I’m sure it’s also partly straight-up Chicago chauvinism.
To return to the Afterburner: It’s the toastiest beer under consideration today, with the fullest body. It smells like barley tea (mugicha or boricha, take your pick), griddled brown bread, ground roasted sesame, and dry hay, with just a tiny bit of violet and jasmine curling around the edges. The toastiness keeps on coming in the flavor, mingling with burnt sugar icing, sweet orange, and floral custard (which I presume is the yeast). I especially like the way this lager finishes, with a crisp, peppery bitterness—by far the strongest hop presence on the table. Married with the malts, it does something that reminds me of very dark coffee. Afterburner has the biggest flavors, a few of which are heading in entirely different directions, but it succeeds because it yokes them together beautifully.
So! I’m sure you don’t need me to keep telling you about Oktoberfest parties. You can use Google just as well as I can. This seems like a fine time for my customarily awkward transition into the customary metal portion of the post. Let’s begin with the entirety of Atomsmasher’s 2000 self-titled LP for Hydra Head, from before they changed their name to Phantomsmasher. This demented experimental grindcore combines guitar, bass, and electronics from James Plotkin (Khanate, O.L.D., Jodis) with vocals from somebody calling himself DJ Speedranch (I think his real name is Paul Richard) and drumming from the estimable Dave Witte (Municipal Waste, Discordance Axis, Melt-Banana).
Pay To Pray EP by The Swan King
