REVIEW 166: YUENGLING OKTOBERFEST

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA (Pottsville, PA!)

BREWERY:  Yuengling Brewery

STYLE:  Märzen/Oktoberfest

ABV:  5.45%

PURCHASE:  Six-pack of 12-oz. bottles, $9.99

SERVING:  12-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. A normal pour yielded a solid two-inch head. A slower pour yielded almost the same. Good retention.

APPEARANCE:  Transparent but a bit hazy. Color is a dark tan bordering upon light copper territory. Standard off-white tinted head, sudsy but somewhat dense. Thin but steady bubbling. Prominent, splotchy lacing. 

AROMA:  Toasted grains and subdued spice notes like allspice and cinnamon. A little malty. Effectively no hop presence.

TASTE:  Thin body and somewhat watery mouthfeel. Very, very easy to drink--I'll give it that. Standard carbonation. As far as the actual taste, well, it's a little slow to take hold. The early going is basically null and void; toasted grains enter the fray mid-palate. Faint traces of generic spices toward the end. Aftertaste also has a bit of appleskin character. Practically no hop presence. On the whole, this isn't much different from a regular Yuengling. 

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  I don't care how "storied" a brewery may be. Average is average. And Yuengling is usually just that . . . at best. They may as well be Leinenkugel's at this point. That's how unexciting their entire line of beers really is.

Bleh, bleh, and more bleh.

SPECIAL NOTE:  I reviewed this beer by request from a girl I know. I asked if I could use her photo at the end of the review, and she declined. You know, make her famous, at least among my two or three dozen regular readers? Oh well. It's possible that I will start having people "model" the beers I review. An idea has been spawned, my little droogs.




GRADE:   C-

Who asked Crockett to review this beer?

REVIEW 165: LEINENKUGEL'S OKTOBERFEST

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA (Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin)

BREWERY:  The Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company

STYLE:  Märzen/Oktoberfest

ABV:  5.1%

PURCHASE:  Draft (pint), $5.50

SERVING:  Pint glass. Not much head, maybe half an inch. Mediocre retention at best.

APPEARANCE:  Copper-mahogany tone and as transparent a beer that dark a color can possibly be. Off-white head, while it exists. Very little bubbling and no lacing whatsoever.

AROMA:  Bready with a whiff of appleskin. Perhaps a touch of some sort of spice. Toasty. Simple but decent.

TASTE:  Slightly filling with mellow carbonation. Soft mouthfeel. Hop factor is minimal, which is par for the course with Oktoberfests. Toasty, particularly toward the back. Malty and grainy finish that leads to a sweet aftertaste rife with appleskin notes and a slight accent of generic spice (seemingly a cross between cinnamon and allspice). Seems to hold back too much in every respect; could stand be more assertive. Goes down kind of like a bastardized Yuengling.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  "I like Leinenkugel's, even if they are a bit of a joke in the craft brewing community." From a Crockett confidante, on a private message board way back in 2009. Hey, I didn't say it; he did.

But I must say I agree with his general sentiment. In virtually every beer category, I have found the Leinie entry to serve as a pale imitation of the true greats. They do nothing wrong. They do nothing well. Bleh.




GRADE:   C-

HOCKEY SEASON = MORE BEER CONSUMPTION FOR CROCKETT

Greetings and salutations.

It has been almost two full months since my last review, as I have been busy with other commitments and needed to conserve finances. But tonight is the start of hockey season. That changes everything.

Beer is my beverage of choice while taking in a game. It follows, then, that with the upcoming slate of hockey games over the next several months, my review activity will return to (more or less) its former level of output.

GO FLYERS!

--Crock