Name: Alasktober Festbier
Brand: Black Spruce Brewing Company
Availability: InStock

Some seasonal beers have to argue for their timing. This one does not.

Black Spruce Brewing Company puts Alasktober Festbier back on tap and in cans this Friday, and in Fairbanks the calendar is already cooperating. The brewery made the point itself, opening its newsletter with a line about September coming in hot before immediately walking it back to acknowledge that things are getting chilly.

The beer is the brewery's Oktoberfest seasonal, listed at 5.5 percent. Black Spruce describes it as joyously crisp, with a gentle bitterness and floral notes it attributes to an addition of German hops.

That last detail is the one worth sitting with. Festbier is a malt-driven style, and the hops in it are usually there to keep the beer from turning sweet rather than to be noticed on their own. Pointing at the hop addition as a source of floral character is a slightly different emphasis. German noble varieties carry a soft, herbal, faintly floral aroma that a pale lager will show clearly, because there is very little else in the glass competing for attention.

The release lands on a busy evening. Friday is also First Friday at the taproom, where the brewery is hosting Fairbanks woodworker Jamie Hollingsworth, whose pieces set colorful epoxy against exposed woodgrain. A couple of his tables are staying in the room for the month. The Spice It Up truck is parked outside from 4pm to 8pm.

Alasktober is available on tap and in cans to go. The brewery says the batch will not last long.

Editor’s Take

Every year around the middle of August, the beer-drinking public convenes to argue about whether it is too early for Oktoberfest beer. The arguments are well worn. The leaves are still green. Somebody invokes Labor Day. Somebody else points out that the actual festival starts in September anyway, and is ignored. Fairbanks, roughly 125 miles south of the Arctic Circle, is excused from the entire proceeding. Black Spruce opened the same newsletter joking that September was coming in hot, then corrected itself one sentence later: it is getting chilly out there. No further defense required. The name is doing honest work too. Alasktober is the sort of portmanteau that either lands on the first read or never does, and this one lands, largely because the state name had already done most of the assembly in advance.

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.

Alasktober Festbier Hides Oktoberfest Inside the State's Name

Black Spruce returns its festbier to the taps on Friday under a name that folds Oktober into Alaska. The brewery credits an addition of German hops for the floral side of it.

Source & Editorial