Swirling the glass lets loose a nose heavy on caramel. The taste is a bit sweet – probably due to underattenuation – and quite bitter with a subtle floral hop flavor. I took a look at the recipe again and my hop additions came to 36 IBU. The BJCP style guidelines for Oktoberfest/Maarzen give a range of 20-28 IBU so this is by design I guess, though it was quite a surprise after the mellow maltiness of the Helles. It has almost an IPA kind of hop flavor to it. I think it’s quite out of character and not fermented fully but it’s delicious.

I did not make a starter for this beer and I did with the Helles, a mistake I will not repeat for any beer. I really think that the most significant change I have made in the past few batches has been to begin pitching proper cell counts – the benefits to flavor profile and attenuation are just huge.

The taste of the sample I pulled before racking was very bitter, potentially oxidized, but hard to tell until it’s carbonated. This thing has been in secondary since February, having lagered at 33 deg for that month but coming up to the forties for serving temp because the Helles keg was in with it. It’s been through a lot. Fingers crossed!