Our Bock is Oktoberfest

Where we once had this....


We now have this...

For more than a hundred years, the most anticipated seasonal beer in Oshkosh was bock beer; a malt-driven amber/brown lager that was released just once a year. Today, the most anticipated seasonal beer in Oshkosh is Oktoberfest; a malt-driven amber/brown lager that gets released just once a year.

Cap: On the left is a 1934 depiction of bock beer from Rahr Malting.
On the right is Fox River Brewing's Oktoberfest.

The two beers share more than color in common. The recipes are also similar.

The post-Prohibition bocks from Rahr Brewing of Oshkosh and the Oshkosh Brewing Company used caramel malts. At Peoples Brewing they took a somewhat different approach by adding a heavy dose of Munich malt in their bock beer. The three Oktoberfests made by Oshkosh breweries this year each included Munich malt along with some form of caramel malt in their recipes.

Not surprisingly, the resulting flavors also share some things in common. In 1961, the Oshkosh Brewing Company described its bock as having a "toasted" flavor with the taste being "quite a bit sweeter" than its standard beer. Some 50 years later, when Fox River Brewing released its Oktoberfest, the brewery’s description mentioned that "The taste is full of a bready sweet maltiness."

The strength of the older bocks and the current Oshkosh Oktoberfests are also in the same ballpark. Wilhelm Kohlhoff, a brewer at Peoples Brewing in Oshkosh during the 1950s and '60s said that Peoples Bock was in the 5.5 to 6% ABV range. That's right in line with Fox River's Foxtoberfest at 6.2% ABV; and Fifth Ward's Oktoberfest at 5.8% ABV. Bare Bones Oktoberfest at 5% ABV isn't too far off that mark, either.

That leaves one major difference between these two types of beer: the release date. Oshkosh-brewed bock was considered a spring beer, released near the end of winter. Oktoberfests, of course, are thought of as the prototypical beer of fall released at the end of summer. But just like the older bocks, the Oktoberfests have succumbed to seasonal creep.

Prior to the 1880s, Bock beer in Oshkosh would usually hit the market in April. But in the 1890s, the creep began with bock beers arriving earlier every year. By the 1910s, Oshkosh breweries were releasing bock beers as early February. Each of the brewers was trying to beat the other to the punch.

From the February 25, 1910 Oshkosh Daily Northwestern.

The same sort of creep has happened with Oktoberfests. In the 1960s, when the first Oktoberfest beers started appearing in Oshkosh, they wouldn't start pouring until mid-September. This year there were Oktoberfest beers on sale in Oshkosh in July. And all three of the Oshkosh Oktoberfests were pouring by early August. The reasons for the creep are much the same. "We're basically forced to brew these beers early," says Andrew Roth, brewmaster at Fox River. “I would prefer we could release it at the proper historical time, but if we do that we won't sell any because the market will have already been saturated by it. It's unfortunate, but there's nothing to be done about it."

I'm part of the problem. I love Oktoberfest and I start grabbing it as soon as it's available. And for me the sooner, the better. Prost!

Notes

For more on the history of bock beer in Oshkosh, click here.

For more on the history of Oktoberfest beers in Oshkosh, click here.