Oktoberfest ends this Sunday at Munich’s Theresienweise. Roughly 6 million people will have consumed about 6.5 million liter-mugs (masskrüg) during the festival. If you’re a beer fan, you haver undoubtedly had an Oktoberfestbier, or other märzen-style beer. These malty lagers vary in color but are always brewed a bit stronger than the standard helles, pils, or dunkel; roughly 5.8-6.3% ABV. The Germans don’t mess around when it comes to “festbier”, which is another name for the style. I’ve never really been able to figure out why they brew a stronger beer to serve at a festival where people drink all day, except to assume that the Germans are better drinkers than the English (session beer… ha!). Now before you go getting your knickers in a bunch, I have both English and German heritage—just making an observation here.
The first Oktoberfest was held in 1810 to celebrate the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese of Sachsen-Hildburghausen, and from then until 1872, the typical Oktoberfestbier was dunkel, the dark lager brewed by all of the Munich breweries. In that year, Spaten ran out of beer and had to sell some of its bock-strength, amber Vienna lager instead. It was a hit, and for several decades, Oktoberfestbier was typically a bock beer.
After World War One, märzen beers in the amber-to-copper color range dominated at Oktoberfest. Oktoberfestbier and märzen are usually associated as styles, and in Germany, märzen is essentially a strength range for beer between standard beer and bock, including pale and dark beers. Historically, märzen was just a slightly stronger than normal beer brewed in March (märzen is German for March) and lagered and drunk through the summer, when brewing was not conducted due to warmer weather. Harvest festivals would have been a good way to drink through the rest of the stored beer and get ready for the new batches brewed in the fall. This style of beer is still brewed for Oktoberfest by some German brewers, but typically for export to the US. Brewers here will also typically brew this style when making a beer for Oktoberfest. It’s a slightly sweet, malty beer with just enough hops to provide a good balance to the malt. Spaten, Hacker-Pschorr, and Paulaner, still export this style to the U.S. as their Oktoberfestbier.
If you go to Oktoberfest today, the beer that you’ll be served is a “wiesn” style beer, which is deep gold in color, and is essentially a märzen-strength helles lager with maybe a touch of darker malt to give it a little more malty flavor and body. Since the 90s, this has been the style of beer brewed for Oktoberfest by all six of the large Munich breweries. Weihenstephaner Festbier is also in this style, as is Victory Festbier. These beers tend to be a little drier and lighter in body than amber märzens, which has been a change in reaction to general tastes over the last several decades. Of the Munich brewers, Hofbräu and Paulaner send their wiesn beers over here, but the rest are only sold in Europe. Most American brewers overlook this style when brewing their own beer for the season, favoring a darker, maltier recipe.
So there you have it, Oktoberfestbier used to be dark (dunkel), got stronger and lighter in color (bock), got not so strong but stayed the same color (märzen), and then got lighter in color but remained the same strength (wiesn). Phew, now I need to go pour myself a liter…
Sam Tierney is a graduate of the Siebel Institute and Doemens World Beer Academy brewing technology diploma program. He currently works as a brewer at Firestone Walker Brewing Company and has most recently passed the Certified Cicerone® exam. He geeks out on all things related to brewing, beer styles, and beer history.