Octoberfest is right around the corner and now is the time to start brewing Oktoberfest Lagers and Marzens. Today I'm brewing a modified version of Maryland Homebrew's recipes, the Oktoberfest Lager.

Truth be told, I started my brew day thinking, "What extra grains do I have, and what could I brew with them?" I had some leftover Pilsen LME and light DME from a previous brew, as well as some munich and caramunich malts, and plenty of 2-row. I had a good variety of hops and yeast on hand. I wanted to brew something seasonal but on the lighter end bitterness-wise. Experimenting is also one of the things I love about homebrewing.

I pulled up Maryland Homebrew's recipe page, and started looking through the listings. I came across our Oktoberfest beer, and wondered if I could brew a pseudo-Oktoberfest with the ingredients I had on hand. I decided to open up Brewfather, and use up their recipe builder. On the off chance you're not familiar with Brewfather, it is an awesome brewing software that I use for finding and building recipes, managing my brew day, and even tracking my inventory.

Now I knew what style of beer I wanted to brew, I opened up Brewfather's recipe builder, using MDHB's Oktoberfest as a base, and modified it to fit the ingredients on hand while still staying as close to style guidelines as I could.

Selecting the style 06A Marzen (because Oktoberfests are technically Marzens) I edited my grain bill and hop additions until the recipe builder gave me numbers as close to the style guidelines as I wanted them. Technically speaking, this beer won''t be a true Marzen or Oktoberfest for a few of reasons. The Reinheitsgebot aside, looking at my recipe builder I knew that my ABVs would be a tad bit over the style guidelines and that my IBUs would be on the lower side. Both of these two points were fine by me, as I wasn't planning on submitting the beer for any contests. You might also notice that the final gravity (FG) is also expected to be lower than the style guideline. I find this often happens when using Kveik yeast, which is arguably the main culprit in my beer not technically being in style.

A Marzen is technically speaking a larger, but the Imperial A43 Loki Yeast is a Norweigan kveik strain that ferments at a wide range with pseudo-lager characteristics. It ferments clean with almost no esters when fermented at room temperature or colder. Perfect for when I want a lager style beer but I don't have room in my keezer or fermentation chamber for another batch. And if you still need more convincing, I've use Imperial A43 Loki Yeast to brew ales, lagers, and even ciders cleanly! Importantly, I'm also brewing this beer for the Home Brew Fest 2021 on September 11th for Katie's Bridge in Catonsville, so I wanted a quick turn around on this beer.

Check back in on the blog later for more updates on this beer and other brews!