Marriage and Munich

I drank my first ever seasonal beer about six years ago, on my first date with my wife. I was a student at the time, I hadn’t a clue what craft beer was but I knew I didn’t like it. Yet there I was, sitting in a bar, on a dark and rainy night in late October, pint of pumpkin beer in hand, desperate to impress the girl who I had loved from a distance for the last two years.

My love for this time of year grows exponentially every year that passes. Because of her, Autumn and Winter feel warmer than Summer ever could.    

After four years of miserably stumbling from job to job, I started working in the drinks industry, in the same beer bar where we had our first date. Something had finally clicked, the joy I held for the darkest of seasons now had an occupational avenue it could pour itself into. The more I read the more I fell into the world of beer and the more it started to intertwine with my love for early sunsets and leaves turning brown. 

As much as I still love pumpkin beer, I have started to turn my attention to other beers which are considered seasonal, like Festbiers and Märzen. But how have they become associated with this time of year? 

Let’s kick off the party in Bavaria.

It is the 12th October 1810 and we are at the wedding reception of Prince Ludwig I and Princess Therese. It’s probably awful because let's be real, we would be cold and poor and no good ever comes from the monarchy. That said, this wedding reception was enjoyed by all, in fact the people of Bavaria had such a good time drinking and eating that they have done it most years since, forming the celebration now known as Oktoberfest. 

It is said that the beers drank at these early celebrations would have been a rich, malt forward dark lager, such as the Munich Dunkel, however by the 1870s, Europe had become obsessed with pale lagers. So in an attempt to appeal this trend, the festival drink shortly changed over to the Märzen. The Märzen was not super pale, but a gorgeous amber to deep orange, easy drinking and malt forward lager, a happy medium. 

Before we go any further we should talk about the differences between ales and lager, which comes down to my favourite topic, yeast. Ale yeast (saccharomyces cerevisiae) ferments in warmer temperatures, for a shorter length of time and the yeast is top-fermenting. Top fermenting means that the yeast sits at the top of the fermentation vessel whilst it turns all of that wonderful sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Whereas lager yeast (saccharomyces pastorianus if you’re nasty) ferments much slower at cooler temperatures and at the bottom of the fermentation vessel, making it bottom-fermenting.

Märzen beers would be brewed in March and then stored in cold caves over the summer, giving the yeast the time it needed to slowly ferment. The final product would be ready just in time for Oktoberfest. A Märzen should be clean, yet soft, with a complex malt profile and a rich mouthfeel but no abrasive flavours. The Märzen needed to be a festival smasher, which it successfully was for the next 100 years, until the 1970s when the Paulaner Brewery in Munich decided that the Märzen was too filling and bready for large quantities of festival drinking, replacing the Oktoberfest beer yet again, this time with Festbier. 

Although the Märzen is still brewed and bottled for the festival, the only beer poured at Oktoberfest is now the Festbier; a slightly lighter malt forward lager. Festbiers are liquid gold, with good carbonation, a sweet malt profile and low hop flavour for balance, making it the perfect festival beer.   

This year, along with everything else, Oktoberfest has been cancelled. Whilst this is not the first time that the festival has been cancelled due to a pandemic, in 1854 and 1873 Munich was struck by cholera, this is the first time the festival has been cancelled since World War Two.

Thankfully, Cloudwater have been able to bring the party to us by collaborating with the community focused non-profit Beer Kulture, to release both a Märzen and a Festbier. By brewing traditional beer styles that have been celebrated by Bavarian communities for over 200 years, as a collaboration they have brought them into the 21st century.

“We have two new releases that emphasise the community building and change work that will form the foundations of the future of craft beer, while paying respect to the traditions and heritage that came before us.” Cloudwater

These styles of Märzen and Festbier are part of the foundations that craft beer stands on today. Cloudwater and Beer Kulture have given the beer industry a clear set of building blocks to work on, in order to not just brew good beer, but to improve the world for the better. By looking back on the work of communities before us, they are helping to look forward and work towards fixing our own. Lifting up and supporting those who need it most, all whilst making and drinking really good beer.

My wife and I’s usual Halloween tradition is to go and see an old scary movie in the cinema and sometimes we drink pumpkin beers. With the current lockdown in Wales this will not be possible, but if there is one thing we are now good at, it is adapting our plans. I look forward to drinking these collaboration beers with her, at home, making new traditions for ourselves too.