Capital Fest

Brewed by Capital Brewery
Style: Oktoberfest/Märzen
Middleton, Wisconsin USA

Serve in Dimpled mug, Lager glass, Stein

Bottle: Golden, translucent, medium white foamy head, spotty lacing, light carbonation.   Malty/grassy nose, hints of cereal.   Mild malty start, slight astringent bitterness emerges towards the finish.   Moderate body and mouthfeel.   Fairly clean finish.   This one seems to me to be somewhat light, not very robust, but its fairly clean and easy to kick back.

Aroma is nutty, pepper and vanilla with some caramel and maple accents. Flavor is smooth almonds and caramel malts with a slight spicy Oktoberfest tingle. Some oak cask qualities. Hint of chocolate malts paired with the crisp reflex of pilsner malts. Heads above Capital’s other Oktoberfest offering. Very pleasing.

Aroma has sweet caramel and toffee with a lot of fruityness. Clear copper-orange color with a white head that fades. Nice caramel flavor, slightly sweet but just a hint of bitterness in the finish...not sure if I would call it bitterness, just not-sweetness. Medium body with a water-smooth texture and slightly metalic finish.

UPDATED: JUN 28, 2005 A festive beer that is a jumble of tastes, textures, and tinges of an assortment of different styles. Nose is swampy and fruity, and this translates in taste to flavors of cantaloupe, yeast, roasted corn, and apricot, all with a buttery mouthfel. These flavors fade to a general spiciness, which in turn gives way to a creamy, caramel malt. The malt isn’t quite sweet... candy-sour and funky are the best words, I suppose. The aftertaste is light, but lingering, a watery swill-brew taste.

Tastes just like all the other Capitol beers. No hop flavor, not hop bitterness, and no beer body! Sorry, I don’t care to drink this beer at all.

Dark gold to pale amber in color. Head is slight but extremely rich, leaving plenty OK off-white lacing. Typical malt-hop imbalance aroma, slightly acrid, not a good balance overall. Flavor is buttery (more precisely "like margarine", but American Midwesterners will refer to margarine as butter so I suppose I may as well). The imbalance continues but the hops seem to win out, allowing compromised elements of honey and corn flakes to show. This brewery puts out much better -- maybe I got a bad bottle, I’m going to try again from another source and update this rating if necessary.

Copper. Nose caramel, bready. Big malts, sweet toffee, slightly smoky. Richer than expected for the style, but quite good.

I was not impressed with this beer. I like all the other beers from capital, but this is by far my least favorite. I don’t know if the beer was old or I just don’t like this style of beer, but that is yet to be proven.