JosephsBrau Oktoberfest

Brewed by Gordon Biersch Brewing Company
Style: Oktoberfest/Märzen
San Jose, California USA

Serve in Dimpled mug, Stein

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Bottle. I just love märzen beers. This is a pretty good one. Clear, amber color. Decent head. Not much lace. Sweet, malty, candy corn aroma. Taste is a grainy, slight caramel one.

Nice head that dissolves to a thin covering with a few clouds of foam over a copper body that is a little too particulate to be pretty. Nose is hosey watery and good for a lager with flavors of nuts and caramel - a lager with character. Taste is cough drop gentle and definite: a little hoppiness emerging from the malt. Palate is at least medium if not full for a lager with perfect carbonation and appropriate finish for the taste: it lingers and slowly fades. A good commercial beer that I wouldn’t hesitate to have.

Bottle.
Pours a decent glassy amber with a nose of toasted autumn leaves, light strawberry jam, and biscuit. Flavor is a mish-mash of brittle autumn leaves, biscuit, toast, and a pinch of butter in the finish. Average mouthfeel. Meh, one is enough.

12 oz bottle poured clear, golden-amber in color, and with an impressive, authentic looking off-white head. The head evens leaves substantial sticky lacing on the glass,but has limited retention. Very fine-grained visible carbonation. The mild scent is rather unremarkable and not enticing. The flavor is certainly better, with a decent malt base and good sweet/bitter balance. Better, stronger and more lasting aftertaste than expected. Medium-light body; medium+ carbonation; semi-dry finish. O: A respectable American Märzen, especially given itslow cost.

Joseph’s Brau has always been a contradiction in terms. One eye crosses inward for my love of Trader Joe’s and everything they sell. They can do no wrong. On the other hand, the Joseph’s Brau brand never puts out real, quality brews, except for the tall bottles TJ scores from Unibroue. Sadly, the seasonal Joseph’s Brau Oktoberfest falls into this same pattern, offering an insipid fall offering that occupies my palate when other, better beers could be in its place. It glows with the standard, deep redwood red of the style, with a thin fuzzy head, and a funneled geyser of bubbles. The aroma featues some candied apple, cinnamon, a touch of sweet maltiness, but also a but of skunkiness. Finally, the flavor, flatlined and dead long before one opens the bottle, delivers an underwhelming, unfestive blearing note of flavor. Some malts, some bitterness, a palate with some energy, but not much more than a retiree (faking it, on a good day), and you have a less-than-middling beer that isn’t even suited for weekday workhorse duties.

Bottle from Trader Joe’s Knoxville. Copper, nice white head. Smells like caramel and corn. Nicely sweet flavor, some caramel and corn here, as well. dryish finish.

6 pack from Trader Joes in Salem. $5.99 Deep golden coloured lager with a large eggshell white head. Ok malty caramel aromas..pleasant enough It has a salty toffee thing to the taste then a slight bitterness OK but not impressive. Palate is actually fine for the style nothing out of place OK Oktoberfest dare say quaffable in quantity

Smells and tastes like there is some wheat in the grain bill here - I get some banana and clove flavors.. A slight smoked meat flavor and some malt sweetness as well. Watery finish - not a very strong beer.

Extremely grainy taste with oxidized mouthfeel. Overall not a favorite and was sorely missing caramel notes in the aroma and palette. Color was nice copper but has anemic lace ring. Mouthfeel had a noticeable slickness to it not unlike a kölsch. At best this was consistent with a darker kölsch beer, but was not my favorite märzen. I am regretting the purchase.

Pours crystal clear orange with a small white head, diminishing quickly with no lacing. Aroma is grainy, with notes of caramel and grass. Flavor is medium sweet, very lightly bitter, but bitter in an unappealing orange-peel kind of fashion. Light bodied and watery. Unexciting.