What Type Of Brew Is An Oktoberfest Beer?

Through August and September and into October, you'll probably see beer on the store shelves labeled Oktoberfest. The beer's name comes from the Oktoberfest Volksfest held in Munich, Germany every year. Dating back to 1811, the festival runs for about two and a half weeks, ending just a little way into October. Various images of what Oktoberfest means as an event have entered the cultural zeitgeist with images of people in lederhosen and carrying around beer steins. In those images, the beer is probably more notable for its quantity than its quality, but there's a rich history behind the brewing of Oktoberfest beers.

At the Oktoberfest in Munich, you will find two types of beer that can be considered Oktoberfest brews: festbiers and märzens. Märzen beer originally came from the Bavarian region in Germany. It is an amber lager that is brewed in March (Märzen being German for the month of March) and then aged until the festival. The festbiers are also German lagers but they tend to be golden and have a stronger malt note than the Märzens.

Oktoberfest beer — or Oktoberfestbier — itself isn't strictly speaking a style of brew in its own right. Much like fizzy sparkling white wine is only champagne if it was made in the Champagne region, Oktoberfestbier is now a protected geographical indication. Only beer that is served at the Munich Oktoberfest can be Oktoberfestbier, and for a beer to be served there it has to have been brewed within the city limits.

That restrictions as to what can be called an Oktoberfestbier means that there are only six breweries that can make it. If you're looking to pick up the real thing, you need to look for beer from Augustiner-Bräu, Hacker-Pschorr-Bräu, Löwenbräu, Paulaner, Spatenbräu, or Hofbräu-München. If you're browsing the beer options in the United States, you'll only find these genuine Oktoberfestbeirs in the imports section. While you might find similar offerings in the domestic U.S. beer selection, they'll be labeled as "Oktoberfest Style" instead and might vary more from what you would find in Germany.

The beer at the Munich Oktoberfest isn't the same every year. There are changes every year, but there have been two major shifts. In the early 1800s when Oktoberfest was young, most of the beer served were dunkels, dark German lagers. In the mid-1800s, the lighter colored amber märzens came to dominate. Then, during the 1970s, Paulaner introduced the even paler festbiers.

While those changes have been seen in Munich, the beers that have been brewed in the United States haven't always changed at the same rate. While the festbier is now the leader in Munich and is the brew that has been specifically labeled as "Oktoberfestbier," the United State craft breweries tend more towards the Marzen lagers. So if you pick up an imported Oktoberfest from Munich, it will likely be a lighter beer, whereas an "Oktoberfest Style" beer brewed in the U.S. will probably be the heavier, more traditional style of brew.