Oshkosh Brewed Oktoberfest

Right now, three Oshkosh breweries have Oktoberfest-style beers on the market. It's the first time that's ever happened. An Oktoberfest beer is an amber, malt-forward type of lager beer that originated in Germany nearly 200 years ago. But the style has a surprisingly short history in Oshkosh. We're now, though, at what looks like the start of an annual tradition among the breweries here.

Patti Dringoli, co-owner of Bare Bones Brewery, pours an Oktoberfest in her brewery's tap room.

Oktoberfest beer, also known as Märzen beer, didn't make its way to Oshkosh until the late 1960s. It first appeared here as an import arriving in late September to coincide with the annual Oktoberfest celebration in Munich. Oshkosh's earlier breweries, though deeply influenced by the German brewing tradition, never included Oktoberfests in their output. It wasn't until Fox River Brewing released its Foxtoberfest Märzen in the fall of 1997 that the style was made locally. Fox River has released its annual Foxtoberfest at about this time each year ever since.

Andrew Roth is the brewmaster at Fox River. When he began there as a lead brewer in 2018, Foxtoberfest was among the first beers he made. Before that, Roth had worked as a brewer in La Crosse where he had an immersion experience with this type of beer. "I lived in La Crosse for a year and Oktoberfest is like a religion there," Roth says. The Oktoberfest he makes at Fox River is from the same recipe the brewery has been using for about a decade. It's become the most important beer in the brewery's seasonal lineup and often sells out by mid-October. Roth can't imagine Foxtoberfest not being in his rotation. "It's not going anywhere," he says. "We'll brew it every year until people don't want Oktoberfest beers anymore." 

Bare Bones Brewery introduced its Oktoberfest in 2018 when Jody Cleveland took over as the head brewer there. "Its one of my favorite styles," Cleveland says. "I look forward to it every year." For Cleveland and Bare Bones, Oktoberfest fits well within the brewery's production scheme. It's brewed using a traditional lager yeast which requires a cold fermentation and a somewhat longer period of maturation. "Because of the different sizes of our fermentation tanks, I can time things out in a way that allows other beers to work around it," Cleveland says. "It actually works out really well for us. I'm able to give it the time it needs to get the right flavor."

This year, Bare Bones became the first Oshkosh brewery to package its Oktoberfest in cans. "I just think the cans help it hold up better," Cleveland says. "You don't have to worry about it getting light-struck or being so susceptible to the elements like bottles are. Cans offer a little better protection."

At Fifth Ward Brewing, this year marks the release of the brewery's first Oktoberfest. It's also the first time the brewery has produced a large batch of lager beer on its 10-barrel system. "We learned a lot," says Ian Wenger, who co-owns and shares brewing duties at Fifth Ward with Zach Clark. "We were tasting it almost daily to track how it developed over that long fermentation and all of a sudden it just got over a hump and became what we wanted it to be." The beer was brewed entirely from German ingredients. "It's definitely authentic in that way," says Clark.

But for Fifth Ward, the production of the beer proved more of a burden than initially anticipated. The cold, slow fermentation tied up the brewery's tanks causing Fifth Ward to run out of several of its other beers. "We're going to need to increase our capacity if we're going to brew this again next year," Clark says. "There's a good chance we'll get some new tanks in here by next summer, so a lot is going to depend on the timing of that."

Though each of the three breweries has produced an Oktoberfest that hues to the traditions of the style, each of the beers has its own distinct flavor profile. For Jody Cleveland, that's part of what makes them interesting. "Seeing what people will do within that limited framework is fascinating to me as a beer drinker and brewer," he says. "I just think it's pretty cool that all three of us have an Oktoberfest out now. They're all fairly different and they're all pretty damned good."

Notes

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

There's more on the space that Oktoberfest beers occupy in the current scene and how that relates historically here.

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.