So I stopped at The Pinnacle of Man's Achievement tonight and picked up some O-Fests that I hadn't tried before (or at least I could not find my tasting notes for; yes, I am that much of a geek): Ayinger, Hacker-Pschorr, and Hofbrau. According to the Spec's website they were supposed to have others, too (Beck's, Erdinger, and St. Arnold), but three different beers is about the maximum I can taste in a night and have my notes make any sense so I didn't search very hard beyond what I found.
The Hacker-Pschorr and Ayinger were excellent. HH, I can see where the H-P could be a favorite. I think I still prefer Paualner, but that plus H-P and Ayinger are in the same ballpark to me.
I was a little disappointed with the Hofbrau. It was rather thin for a Märzen IMO and was somewhere between that and a helles. Not that helleses(?) are bad by any stretch, but it's just not what I expected or was in the mood for. I'm far from an expert but from what I've read, the beers at the real Oktoberfest in Munich have started to gravitate towards these lighter styles (maybe somebody here can enlighten me on this), so if that's what you are into I suppose this would do nicely.
There you have it, my very own little Oktoberfest-fest courtesy of Tropical Storm Humberto and my employer being closed until noon tomorrow. Hopefully I'll be able to score some of the St. Arnold version after 10/1 and, who knows, maybe I will be able to track down a taste of the others I mentioned, too.
