Stockyards Festbier (5.5%)
Munich’s famed Oktoberfest opened last Saturday on the Theresienwiese, or as it’s more simply known, the Wiesn, in central Munich. It was my intent to write up a Category Spotlight highlighting all of the Oktoberfest beers I could get my hands on, but a bad back intervened and all this week I have been struggling just to keep up with my paid writing work, much less embark upon a major beer reviewing project.
In place of the Spotlight, then, I will today begin reviewing a single Oktoberfest beer per day and continue it for as long as I have beers to review. (There are a bunch in the LCBO, including today’s feature beer, and others that I will be working to get a hold of as soon as my back fully allows me to do so.) But before we get to today’s review, a word about the Oktoberfest beer style.
It is fashionable in certain beer circles these days to say that there are two distinct styles at play here, the Festbier and the Märzen, the latter pronounced ‘Mare-tzen.’ Personally, I view them as two sides of the same coin, with what some would call a traditional Märzen the Old School interpretation of what used to be widely known as the Oktoberfest Märzen style, and the Festbier the more modern incarnation. Regardless of terminology, though, they generally fall into two camps, with the Old School being auburn or amber coloured, rustic, and earthy, and the New being bright gold, honeyed, and sweetish in the body with a drying finish.
(The Festbier/New School Oktoberfest is, not surprisingly, what you are served at Munich’s Oktoberfest, which this year runs until October 6. If you’re curious about it, check out my All About Beer magazine story from 2010, which details my first and to date only visit. I doubt things have changed all that much since.)
Styles now established, let us turn to today’s review, which comes from a brewery located on the outskirts of Waterloo, Ontario, mere steps from the St. Jacobs Market. (The Kitchener-Waterloo Oktoberfest begins today and lasts until October 19.) Although new to me, the Stockyards Beverage Company has been around since 2018 and, according to the brewery website, is planning to relocate soon to a new facility in the same area.
While this beer is billed a “traditional Bavarian festbier,” I don’t think the revellers in the Augustiner Festhalle would much approve of the haziness shown by this golden lager, which is far from hazy IPA extremes, but still notable and noteworthy. On the nose, it has a slight whiff of underattenuation, apparent in the aroma of wet grain that appears alongside the more style-appropriate honey and fresh hay notes.
The palate entry is on point, with a malted barley sweetness and the merest suggestion of elevated strength. Things begin to go astray on the mid-palate, however, with those enticing malt accents growing slightly sour and the appearance of phenolic notes – think Band-Aid – which while fairly mild, are still enough to disrupt the full enjoyment of the beer. A slightly out-of-balance hoppiness then takes hold on the finish, completing a flavour profile that begins with promise but ultimately, and unfortunately, fails to fully live up to it.
One of the key elements of a proper Oktoberfest beer is that it should be able to be enjoyed by the litre, which is how the beer is served on the Wiesn. And while I enjoyed my first few sips of this beer well enough, I struggled to get to the end of the 473 ml can, which perhaps tells you all you need to know.
70 ($3.40/473 ml)