Sam Oktoberfest is hitting stores (incoming rant from Maligne), though I always liked Harpoon's better anyway. Now that I am living in Colorado, I am looking forward to getting to try some new fall seasonals. Does anyone have any noteworthy west-of-the-Mississippi Oktoberfest or other fall seasonal brews I should keep an eye out for?

Oktoberfest beers are big money maker for a lot of the craft breweries. That and the pumpkin beers, which have really taken off in the recent years.

This is pretty much my favourite beer season of the year. I love a well made pumpkin beer, but it unfortunately is a style that is really easy too mess up, and there are a lot of "false" pumkin beers out there that are not made the right way.

The really bad thign about both styles getting a boost is that it gets to be really hard to find them when it is the proper time to drink them. It's getting so bad by me that you can't even find them in October now. I have to stock up on them at the end of the Summer and store them till the proper time.

Now decent Pumpkin Beers on the East Coast is something I know about! Well Weyerbabcher and Southern Tier both make a great pair of Imeprials. For normal ones, Brooklyn, via the Post Road brand, and Smuttynose both have decent ones too. Dogfish Head have one as well, but I have not tried it yet, it's sitting in storage in my cellar right now.

I bought a bomber of the Stone vertical epic tonight after I read the description - extremely hopped belgian tripel. It was very good, although it reminded me a lot of the Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel with a less impressive head.

I absolutely love beer, but I just can't get into Oktoberfests. I really don't care for the style.

Oktoberfest - Overpriced boozing party with bad bavarian (not "really" german) folk music and "pseudo techno dance house folk music".

And the strees around the Festwiesen smelling like Urine for about 3 weeks.


Anyway, I dont really like those Pilsner beer or whatever ist called in English; ... Lager ?
My favourite clearly is Köstritzer Schwarzbier; hum ... black ale, black beer, strout or dark beer.

Or as the Hessian who i am just Äppelwoi (kind of "cider").

Had that as well about a month ago. Was pretty decent, but I got the feeling it just wasn't fully there yet, needs to age a bit. It is one of the few things that Stone does that bottle ferments. I made sure to grab another one which I threw into storage in my cellar so i can try it a few years down the road.

Don't those Vertical Epic beers specifically say on the bottle it's supposed to age for something ridiculous like 12 years?

It depends on the year and the style. They pick a different style each year, and not all of them are meant to age.

Managed to try that Double Dead Guy this weekend. Great looking bottle on this one, going to be keeping it. Pretty obviously based on the original Dead Guy, but much stronger and hoppier. Pretty well balanced too. I'd say it's one of Rogue's better efforts.

Pretty pricey though.

I'd say this, their Smoke Ale and Chocolate Stout are the beers I have enjoyed the most from them.

If someone of you ever is visiting Würzburg in Germany.

Haus der 150 Biere ( House of the 150 Beer )

Menu ( inc. List of Beer)
They have very "special" Beermixes on the Menu :|

I've you're around give it a Chance.

Dogfish's Punkin is way too spiced for my tastes. It could just have easily been called "nutmeg: the brown ale in an orange bottle that we call pumpkin." It's still pretty tasty, I just can't drink more than one without getting a bit of heartburn.

Southern Tier's Pumking is in an entirely different class, excellent balance between hoppiness and savory pumpkinosity. Not so crazy on the spice and there's a significant brown sugar character in the front. If you can get one pumpkin ale and you can't get smuttynose's get this.

I had some New Holland that was surprisingly good. I also tried the Southern Tier Pumpking - much like the Creme Brulee Stout you pretty much have to have food with it. Otherwise it's just too much flavor and I can't see drinking more than one at a time regardless.

The local ale House here had a huge Octoberfest party last weekend - they gave away Paulaner liter steins and of course had the beer to match. I had one-and-a-half and was pretty floored. I have no idea what I'm going to use this thing for, it's huge and weighs a ton!