Isn’t it strange the things you remember? I think so. When I picked up my six-pack of Abita Octoberfest Marzen-Style Lager at Total Wine last fall, I got a flash-back to the time I bought a six of Abita Jockamo IPA in 2008. I bought that at Green’s Liquors on Ponce De Leon in Atlanta, so it wasn’t the location that caused the flashback. No, it was the price that did it actually, and not really in a good way.

You see, that was just a short seven years ago, and in those days, Abita beers could be bought for a mere $5.99 a six-pack. Today, they run $8.99, a 7% annual increase. That’s much more than the rate of inflation, and it reflects the upward spiraling trend of craft beer these days. Of course, Abita has been around since 1986, and you certainly can’t blame them for cashing in on the craft beer bandwagon. But it’s sad to see them abandon the bargain pricing they used to embrace.

Abita says this about their Octoberfest on the label:

Abita Octoberfest is a German style lager brewed with pale, Munich and Crystal malts. This full-bodied malty lager has a copper color and is hopped and dry hopped with German Hallertau hops giving it a pleasant, spicy hop aroma.

Abita Octoberfest Marzen-Style Lager has an alcohol content of 5.4% by volume with 24 IBUs. As I said, I paid $8.99 a six-pack for it at Total Wine. My bottles say best by 1/13/15 and I drank it just after that on January 25^th. It’s been in my beer fridge since I bought it in October.

Abita Octoberfest Marzen-Style Lager pours to a slightly cloudy caramel color with a respectable foamy head formation and a soft toasty malty nose. Taking a sip, the beer has some decent notes of caramel malt and toasted nuts in the palate. The malt is followed by a floral, slightly bitter hoppiness. That bitterness becomes just a bit more aggressive as the beer warms. I don’t want a lot of bitterness in this style, it’s the malt that should be the star of an Oktoberfest beer. There is a tea-like herbal hop aroma that seems incongruous with the style.

All in all, not a bad beer, and it has a pleasant enough malty character. I definitely prefer for a nationally available domestic example of the style Samuel Adams Octoberfest. That beer is a dollar less a six pack, too. Abita used to put out a beer called Abita Fall Fest with different hops and malts and I actually preferred that beer to this one. Would I buy Abita Octoberfest again? Maybe if I saw it on tap at Taco Mac, but for the most part I think I would not, sticking with Sam Adams or a good German Ofest like Paulaner or Spaten for the same price.

Update 9/3/2016: Andddd guess what? Here I amn drinking it on tap at Taco Mac. I'm thinking that maybe I was a bit too hard on this beer the last time I drank it. There is a gentle toasty nutty malt character  in the nose, and it's present but subtle in the palate as well. The beer  hints at floral hop aroma and bitterness in the finish, much as I described above. Still not my favorite Marzenbier, but there is a fresh maltiness akin to chewing malt kernels I enjoy. That said, the beer lacks the malty "oomph" of the best German and domestic Ofests. $14.95 and I keep the glass to the right; $5.75 without it and in a pint or 20-ounce glass for Brewniversity Bachelors and above. After reconsideration I'm tacking on another half star and changing to a rebuy. I would not have a problem drinking this one again. After all, I just did.



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