Blue Point Oktoberfest

After a bit of a departure the last few weeks, I’ve returned home for this week’s beer of choice. Plus, it’s finally autumn, so why not start reviewing a favorite beer style of the season?

Straight out of Patchogue, on Long Island, Blue Point brewery has been bringing beer to me in New York City for well over a decade. I shamefully admit I’ve never tried their fall seasonal Oktoberfest till this week, and I present it to you this first October Friday.

I remember Blue Point for its excellent, malty Toasted Lager and a strikingly bitter pale ale, with a lot of one-offs, well-made cask-conditioned beers, and the occasional strong winter beer — the brewer once gifted a friend of mine and I a large, wax-sealed bottle of his 2001 Old Howling Bastard barleywine, for instance. I wasn’t aware of the brewery creating lagers, as those take twice to four times as long to condition, taking up brewery space in the meantime, but I spied this on the shelf and decided to keep my dollars in-state. The bottles are contract-brewed and packaged in Rochester, at High Falls Brewing (Gennesee, J.W. Dundee’s), but of course it’s the Blue Point recipe.

Oktoberfest is a very “clean” style; the yeast does its job with the whole alcohol and CO2 production, but without the fruity esters accompanying that. Much like bocks and doppelbocks, its stronger cousins in the lager family, Oktoberfest relies on its malts to create a slightly sweet, cookie-dough flavor without any real bitterness. Caramel sweetness is just wrong, and a highly-hopped O’fest is a shame (but also fairly common among American versions of the style). Incidentally, the beer served at Oktoberfest has gravitated in recent years from this style (known also as Marzen) to a more golden-hued, lighter, easier-drinking style. So it’s more of an interesting beer style now than an iconic marker.

But as usual, why quibble over what’s served when, when you can just sit back and pour yourself a beer that you hope is good?

To celebrate the season, I used one of last year’s Shacktoberfest steins — note that this year’s Shacktoberfest is in full swing for another week, get your stein soon! — and poured in two bottles of the Blue Point Oktoberfest. The Oktoberfest pours a beautifully clear, deep amber, kicking up a thick, soapy head that lingers along the sides of the glass for a long, long while. The aroma starts out a little disconcertingly sweet caramel-like — a big no-no — but that burns off fairly quickly, yielding to a more melanoidin-rich nose, that telltale cookie-dough/bready quality I want from my Oktoberfestbier. Hops? Nope. So Blue Point gets a gold star in my book, simply for restraining themselves.

Then it’s time to put lips to beer. Granted, the first few sips are curiously dry. Since there’s not really any discernible hop bitterness in this beer, it’s up to the malts to carry the day, and it’s not really doing its job there at first. The interesting flavors I was promised in the nose don’t materialize to any great extent. It’s just kind of… there. At least the finish showcases a bit of the Munich-malt character, and the beer has a pleasantly full body, as clean as can be, while I wait for the flavor to pick up between nose and throat. As the beer warms — it takes a while to get through 24 ounces of beer, after all — the malt does poke out a little bit, but it’s not exceptional. In all, it’s a very “safe” beer, quite drinkable, poundable even, if that’s your thing, but not really a top-tier Oktoberfest this year.

As I commonly do, I bought the Blue Point at Whole Foods, as they’re open late enough for me to have time to lazily browse the shelves for my beer choices after work. At $8.99, it’s fairly priced, too. While Blue Point taps don’t seem to be as prevalent as they ought to be, you ought to be able to find a tap at a lot of decent beer bars, and can typically rely on better beer stores to carry the bottles without fail. That “appellation” carries some weight these days with the recent explosion of breweries from Suffolk County, and as the granddaddy of breweries from the Island, Blue Point carries its mantle well. Even if you decide not to take a look at the O’fest, give the brewery a shot.