{"id":7865,"date":"2018-10-08T13:21:50","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T19:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=7865"},"modified":"2018-10-24T13:16:24","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T19:16:24","slug":"tap-beers-of-the-week-oktoberfest-faceoff-sierra-nevada-vs-otter-creek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/lifestyle\/7865\/tap-beers-of-the-week-oktoberfest-faceoff-sierra-nevada-vs-otter-creek","title":{"rendered":"TAP Beers of the Week: Oktoberfest Faceoff: Sierra Nevada vs. Otter Creek"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Oct. 8, 2018]–<\/em>After two weeks of partying, Oktoberfest ended in Munich last night. But there\u2019s no reason we can\u2019t blissfully keep drinking Oktoberfest beers for as long as our autumnal palates desire. (And before we inevitably give way and drink a pumpkin ale or two.)<\/p>\n\"2018<\/a>\n

I\u2019ve written plenty about Oktoberfest and the M\u00e4rzen-style beers typical to the season, most recently in \u201cBeery Odes to Autumn<\/a>.\u201d So let\u2019s get right to the head to head knockdown before us. I was going to say it was a bi-coastal battle between Vermont and California, but the chances are about 100% that the Sierra Nevada brews I bought came not from the Chico, California headquarters, but the newer east coast plant in Mills River, North Carolina. So even playing field there.<\/p>\n

And both beers are collaborations with German brewers, so no handicap there, either. When Otter Creek expanded two years ago it installed a new 120-barrel system built by BrauKon of Germany. BrauKon has a pilot brewery outside of Munich called Camba Bavaria, hence the seeds of Otter Creek\u2019s first international collaboration; this is the second year that the resulting Oktoberfest recipe has appeared.<\/p>\n

Beyond \u201cGerman malts and a healthy dose of traditional German noble hops,\u201d the Otter Creek website is a bit vague about the ingredients. I\u2019m waiting for a response about which noble hops were used (Hallertau, Saaz, Spalt, Tettnang).<\/p>\n

Sierra Nevada has taken a different tack, collaborating with different German breweries every year since 2015. Aside from the use of a heritage German malt called Steffi in each brew, the recipe has changed each year with the various breweries (Riegele, Mahr\u2019s Brau, Brauhaus Miltenberger). This year SN took up with the world\u2019s oldest brewery, Weinhenstephan, which has been around since 1040, long before the original Oktoberfest bash in 1810.<\/p>\n

(It\u2019s common enough to struggle with the pronunciation of Weinhenstephan as this brief video suggests):
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