What should we drink this dreadful time of year, when everything goes pumpkin spice? There are pumpkin spice lattes, for which Starbucks is to blame. At Dutch Bros. Coffee, you can get an iced caramel pumpkin brulee cold brew. At Gregorys Coffee, there is a Smashing Pumpkin (cold brew oat milk, vanilla, and pumpkin spice syrup). There is pumpkin spice vodka and pumpkin spice rum (Captain Morgan, you ought to be ashamed of yourself) and recipes galore for such enormities as pumpkin spice old fashioneds and, it pains me even to say it, pumpkin spice martinis.
And then there are the beers. Sam Adams has a pumpkin ale, and so too just about every craft brewery in the business: Rogue has Pumpkin Patch Ale; Dogfish Head has a Punkin Ale; Elysian, a Punkuccino; Flying Dog (which really ought to know better) offers The Fear pumpkin ale; and New Holland Brewing has a pumpkin ale that it calls “Ichabod.”
New Holland’s nod to the Headless Horseman makes clear what the pumpkin beers are all about — the Halloween market. The spooky costume bash has long been up there with Cinco de Mayo and St. Patrick’s Day as a hard-drinking holiday. But unlike those two boozy standbys, Halloween hasn’t had a go-to drink. St. Patrick’s Day boosts sales of beer (green or otherwise) and Irish whiskey. Cinco de Mayo enriches the makers of Mexican beer. And now, Halloween has pumpkin spice beer with scary stuff on the label. Oh, the horror.
Now, this is the point in the column where I might normally taste a selection of the drink being discussed. But that would entail choking down a dozen different pumpkin spice beers in an effort to find out which is least awful. Sorry, I won’t do it.
Instead, we’re going to put to the test beers brewed for autumn drinking, Marzen, or “March” beers. Once upon a time, Bavarian health and safety regulations prohibited making beer in the summer. It is beer made in the previous spring, then, that is poured (and poured and poured) in the fall for Oktoberfest.
Pumpkin beers are not the only seasonal beers American craft brewers have been selling as the leaves start to change. Though festbiers have long been the province of Munich breweries, such as Hacker-Pschorr, Hofbrau, and Spaten, upstart Americans now regularly make Marzen-style lagers and sell them as Fest-worthy specialties. But are they really Fest-worthy? Bavarian brewers have been perfecting marzenbier since 1553, when Duke Albrecht V put the kibosh on summer brewing.
To decide the question, I gathered a number of friends who are not just beer savvy, but German beer savvy. In best Oktoberfest fashion, one of the tasters on the panel turned up in lederhosen and loferl socks. We tasted, blind, eight different Oktoberfest-style beers, four authentic German marzenbiers — Hofbrau, Hacker-Pschorr, Ayinger, and Paulaner — and four from New World breweries — Port City in Virginia, Great Lakes in Cleveland, Union Craft in Baltimore, and Atlas in Washington, D.C. What we were doing was for beer what was done for wine in what has come to be known as the Judgment of Paris. Call our effort the Judgment of Munich if you like, though the tasting was done in Washington, D.C.
Our opinions were not all the same, though there were a few beers that stood out, for better and worse. I found Hacker-Pschorr to be flabby and bland and Hofbrau uninspired. Creamy, but a little blah was my take on Ayinger. It was not an impressive showing by the Germans.
How about the Americans? Union Craft was crisp and dry; Great Lakes was a little too malty; Port City didn’t distinguish itself but was pleasant enough. That left two beers, one or the other of which was at the top of each taster’s scoring sheet. My favorite proved to be Atlas, with its lovely balance of bitter hops and sweet malt. But I was outvoted by the overwhelming majority who were drawn to smooth, bright Paulaner. Who am I to argue?
Eric Felten is the James Beard Award-winning author of How’s Your Drink?
