HiHO Brewing Co.'s tap list runs heavily to IPAs and hazy IPAs, beers that can get from brewhouse to glass inside a couple of weeks. Its Oktoberfest spent six weeks lagering before it went anywhere.
The Cuyahoga Falls brewery has the seasonal Marzen back, on draft and in 16 ounce four-packs, at 6.2 percent ABV. HiHO describes a bready aroma with a slight caramel profile and low hop bitterness, followed by what the release notes call the slightest grape, dry finish.
That closing note is worth pausing on. Marzen descriptions tend to run through bread crust, toast and caramel and then stop. Grape is not part of the usual vocabulary for the style. It is an unusual enough word to reach for that the note reads like an observation rather than a template.
The six weeks is the more consequential number. Marzen takes its name from March, the month when the beer was historically brewed before being stored cold through the summer and drunk in the autumn. Long conditioning is not a flourish applied to the style, it is the style. On a working brewery's schedule it also means a tank held out of rotation for a month and a half. That is the quiet cost behind every Oktoberfest that turns up in August.
Oktoberfest is pouring now at HiHO's Front Street taproom in Cuyahoga Falls, with four-packs available to take home.
Source & Editorial
JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.