Tennessee Brew Works will sell this beer to anyone who wants it, on one condition. They have to be in Tennessee.

The Nashville brewery's Oktoberfest is back, available now on draft and in 12-ounce cans, sold in six-packs and 24-pack cases. The brewery brews it once a year and describes this run as limited. It comes in at 5.2 percent ABV and 17 IBU.

Tennessee Brew Works describes rich malt with bready and biscuit character, light toasted notes on the finish, and hop bitterness it calls clean and soft. The IBU figure supports that framing. At 17, the hops are there to keep a malt-forward lager from turning sweet rather than to be tasted on their own, which is the traditional balance for the style.

The can states the beer's case plainly. A German flag and the Tennessee tri-star are crossed at the poles, the word Marzen is set in blackletter beneath them, and a line around the base reads brewed and canned in Nashville, Tenn. It is a beer clear about where its recipe comes from and where it was made, and it is only for sale in one of those two places.

That restriction reads as deliberate rather than accidental. Tennessee Brew Works built its identity on in-state sourcing, and introduced the state's first commercially produced all-Tennessee grain beers in 2018 in partnership with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. A beer the brewery frames as a Tennessee-borne Marzen is a natural thing for it to keep at home. The brewery has not said whether this particular recipe uses Tennessee grain.

For pairing, the brewery points to Germanic food generally, and to a proper beer stein specifically.

Oktoberfest is pouring at the Nashville taproom on Ewing Avenue and at the Lenoir City Barrel House in East Tennessee. Tennessee Brew Works is asking drinkers to request it at bars, restaurants, groceries and stores elsewhere in the state.

Editor’s Take

Buried in the recommended pairings for this beer, alongside the entirely sensible suggestion of Germanic food, is an instruction about glassware: tastes best when consumed from a proper beer stein. I have read a great many release sheets. The pairings line is almost always a list of things to eat. This one tells you what to hold.

The irritating part is that they are right. A stein changes the drinking, and not in a way that is easy to argue with. The dimpled wall keeps your hand off the beer, the handle does the same job more honestly, and the volume forces a slower, longer relationship with a lager that was built at 5.2 percent for exactly that. A Marzen served in a shaker pint is a beer you finish. A Marzen served in a stein is an afternoon. Tennessee Brew Works has quietly worked out which one it is selling, and has put it in writing next to the food.

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.

Oktoberfest Puts the Tennessee Tri-Star Beside the German Flag

A Marzen brewed once a year and sold in exactly one state. Tennessee Brew Works has its Oktoberfest back in draft and cans at 5.2 percent, with the German and Tennessee flags crossed on the label.

Source & Editorial