Profiled by Maria Devan
Rockin’ the night life, haunting with the ghosts and hootin’ with the night owls.
Spaten Oktoberfest. I have been waiting while you all have been drinking this beer.
Color is perfect copper. Khaki head that lasts well. Vibrant hues . Nose is rich bread, mellow depth. A bit toasty. Spicy hop without extravagance. Dry herbal, peppery floral. No off scents.
Drinks hearty with a touch of spice to finish it moderately dry. Biscuity breaddy smooth and with a toastiness that is dry and hearty with flavor like the crust on brown bread or soda bread. Melanoidin character marries earthy softness from hops. herbal is a sweet coolness. See how the hops are also a part of the mouthfeel. Balanced bitterness leaves you with a mild tingle. The bjcp describes the malt in this style as soft, elegant and complex.
It is 5.9 percent and that is the reason it’s a “fest” beer. There is a bit of strength. The richness from malt balances the little extra alcohol. Let’s say in matters of taste 5.2% is a good strength for a lager beer. That LITTLE bit of alcohol. .6 allows for a bigger malt with a little bit of sweet nature to it. That is melanoidin character and it is soft and elegant.
Cheers!
4
Welcome to the PGA beer rating system: one beer “Don’t bother.” Two: Eh, if someone gives it to you, drink. Three: very good, go ahead and seek it out, but be aware there is at least one problem. Four: seek it out. Five: pretty much “perfecto.”
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Maria Devan lives in Ithaca, NY and is a great beer writer. That’s Maria in the middle. The other two are not, but they are lucky to have her as a friend.
I’m going to start with Specialty Cider because in general the characters are stronger, with less need for understanding of subtlety or the need to search out hard-to-find or over-aged French ciders or Traditional Perries for judge practice and palate training. Later, if there’s interest, I’ll talk about Cider Characteristics, as well as Judging Standard Cider and Perry, Common Flaws, and Understanding Malolactic
It’s hard for me to stay in denial about the fading of summer when football starts, trees start to turn, and those fall/winter-ish beers start to hit the stands. I could just rationalize away the football thing by under-dressing for the first two games, which I do every season, and if I can get my fabulously beautiful wife to quit rhapsodizing about “the trees are so beautiful, this time of year!“, I could ignore the leaves, too. But the beers…BIG damned problem.
For several years now, ever since its inception, one of my favorite PNW beers to just sit and sip and enjoy has been No-Li Brewhouse’s brilliant “Spin Cycle” Red, formerly called “Crystal Bitter”, an inspired cross-cultural mash-up of ingredients and techniques from the German, British, and American brewing traditions. Using Northwest hops, German malts, and a lager-style fermentation, “Spin Cycle” has always tasted like nothing else. It vaguely reminds me of my all-time favorite fall seasonal beer, Deschutes “Jubelale”, but with less of a hops presence and a little lighter body. It took home a Gold Medal from GABF in 2012, and won golds at both the 2016 Australian International Beer Awards and 2012 Japan International Beer Competition. And it richly deserved all of those. Spin is a gorgeous, coppery, mouth-filling juggling act of lightness and intensity. It’s coming home with me about four out of every ten times I go to a beer shop and is just so flat-out satisfying and delicious that I’ve become a bit evangelical about it, buying and pouring at least two cases of it over the past few years at organized beer tastings. The ONLY thing I have even found to criticize Spin Cycle for is its hops content, which is moderate and balanced but just a tad, just a whisker, less than I would have liked. 
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