Aren’t we lucky? The Rosen Group, who does PR for DRAFT magazine (a beer glossy), pitched us an invitation to the Oktoberfest held at the German Embassy. What fun we had! Horst D. Dornbusch, the author of Prost!, the easy-to-read book on German beer, was on hand. There was music, dancing, heaps of food, and folks dressed in both Black Tie and German finest.
We were given a beer stein when we entered, which we used to sample the dozen or so German beers being poured. The on-tap TUCHER HELLES HEFEWEIZEN was very refreshing (Rating ****),and the WARSTEINER PREMIUM OKTOBERFEST was malty sweet (Rating ***3/4).
Moving onto the bottled beers… The ZOTLER KORBINIAN DUNKEL struck us as pleasant but bland (Rating ***), and the ST. GEORGEN-BRAU KELLER BIER, an unfiltered, low carbonation lager, was intriguing — its slightly dry, slightly malty, and slightly bitter. (Rating ****) We enjoyed the MECKATZER GOLD, which was clean and showed citrus notes, making it a nice palate-cleanser. (Rating ***3/4)
The stars of the show were the LAMMSBRAU ORGANIC DUNKEL, which was light-bodied and delicious (Rating ****1/4), and the unbelievable MILTENBERGER HELLES HEFE-WEIZEN, a wheat beer with an almost effervescent body that boomed with clove, bumble gum, and banana notes. (Rating *****)
All in all, we and the couple hundred others who thronged the Embassy had a blast. We’ll put it on the calendar for next year, for sure.
