Day 268, Sep 25 / OktoberFish

Day 268 / September 25, 2011

OktoberFish

Flying Fish Brewing Company  /  Cherry Hill, NJ

A

NG

P

G

VG

O

Who gives a Flying Fish?

The last American beer in the Oktoberfest Beer Run was OktoberFish from Flying Fish in New Jersey.

Now I’ve had several beers from FF before, and most were pretty good, so I thought this could be a strong finish to the USA’s showing in the Beer Run.  Not so much.

While it had a nice deep amber color, the taste was lacking.  I really couldn’t get past the sweetness of the beer.  I’m still sitting her in my chair making that sound – how do you spell that sound when you’re trying to get a taste out of your mouth?  Myah?  Ntah?

So the USA ends with a cumulative score of 36.  Germany needs a Passable tomorrow for a tie, and a Good for a win.  Can they pull it off?  Stay tuned! Same Beer-Time, same Beer-Channel!

		Germany			USA
Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest		G	6		-	-
Stoudt’s Oktober Fest		-	-		G	6
Duck-Rabbit Marzen		-	-		G	6
Ayinger Oktober-Fest Marzen		VG	8		-	-
Erdinger Oktoberfest		G	6		-	-
Shiner Oktoberfest		-	-		P	4
Paulaner Oktoberfest Bier		G	6		-	-
Brooklyn Oktoberfest		-	-		VG	8
Victory Festbier		-	-		VG	8
Weihenstephaner Festbier		G	6		-	-
Flying Fish OktoberFish		-	-		P	4
TOTALS			32			36

Lagunitas Brewing in Petaluma, CA (north of San Francisco, west of Napa) makes some BIG beers.  Their Maximus IPA and Hop Stoopid Ale are favorites of hopheads everywhere.  We’ll consider their plain old IPA to be a gateway beer.  It’s a solid IPA, without a strong hop smackdown.

Speaking of gateway beers, I read a couple good blog posts lately by Jake Berg on DCBeer.com relating to beer snobbery.  I’ll admit to being a beer geek, and yes, on occasion I may have been slightly snobby.  But I will try to live up to Jake’s advice:

“What’s the difference between preaching the gospel of craft beer and being a hectoring snob? It’s a fine line. But if you’re making someone feel bad for their choice of beverage, please knock it off. After all, as a wise man once said, the best beer you have is the one in your hand.”

You can read Jake’s posts here:

On Beer Snobbery, Part I

On Beer Snobbery, Part II