Hannelore Builds Its Oktoberfestbier on New Jersey Pils Malt

A golden festbier chasing Munich by way of Shiloh. Twin Elephant built its 6.2 percent Oktoberfestbier on Rabbit Hill Farmhouse Pils, malted at the other end of New Jersey, and hopped it with Hallertauer Mittelfruh and Spalt.

Style: Oktoberfest
Release Date: 2026-09-18
ABV: 6.2%
Twin Elephant Brewing Company (Chatham, NJ)

The pilsner malt underneath Twin Elephant's new Oktoberfestbier was made about as close to home as a New Jersey brewery can arrange.

Hannelore lands Friday, September 18, at the Chatham taproom. The can lists it as an Oktoberfestbier at 6.2 percent ABV, packaged in one-pint cans. Twin Elephant describes it as a golden, modern take on the beers poured at Oktoberfest in Munich, and calls it pale, strong and deceptively drinkable.

The grain bill opens with Rabbit Hill Farmhouse Pils. The brewery describes that malt as local, and the description holds up. Rabbit Hill Malt operates out of Shiloh, at the far southwestern corner of the state, where a fifth-generation farm family opened New Jersey's first craft malthouse in 2015. The company malts on a floor rather than in a drum. Vienna and Munich malt sit behind the pils, and the hops are Hallertauer Mittelfruh and Spalt, both German noble varieties.

There is a mild contradiction inside that ingredient list, and it is the most interesting thing about the beer. The style Hannelore is chasing is about as place-specific as brewing gets. It is defined by one festival in one city, where only six Munich breweries are permitted to pour. Twin Elephant has gone after the German hop character and the German malt character, then sourced the single largest ingredient from a farm at the other end of New Jersey.

A pale festbier is also an unforgiving place to attempt that. There is no roast, no fruit and no adjunct in the recipe, and the hops are there to frame rather than to lead. Base malt is most of what a drinker actually tastes, which means the decision about where it comes from is not a marketing footnote. It is most of the beer.

Twin Elephant reports soft fresh bread and cracker-like malt, a touch of honeyed grain, and delicate floral and herbal noble hop character. It credits a long, cold lagering period for leaving the beer polished and clean, with a crisp, lively finish and enough malt underneath to still read as a festival beer.

Hannelore is one of three lagers the brewery is releasing Friday, alongside a Marzen called Otto and a Schwarzbier called Kaputte Stuhle. It also appears on the taproom's on-site menu. The releases land a day ahead of Twin Elephant's Wenig (Little) Oktoberfest, running Saturday, September 19, from 2 to 7 p.m. in Chatham with fest beer releases, a food pairing and a steinholding competition.

Editor’s Take

The thing I keep turning over is the geography. Oktoberfest is the most aggressively place-bound beer there is - one city, one meadow, one fortnight, six breweries with a permit - and a brewery in Chatham, New Jersey has decided to have a go at it using pilsner malt from Shiloh, New Jersey. On paper that is the least authentic move available. In practice it is the most, because the Munich houses are also using grain from more or less down the road, which is rather the point of the whole exercise. Twin Elephant has copied the part that actually travels and left the part that does not.

Rabbit Hill helps the case along by being genuinely unusual: a fifth-generation farm family who looked at their fields in 2015 and built the state's first craft malthouse, then chose to malt on a floor, which is the slow way and the way that requires somebody to physically turn the grain. That is a lot of deliberate effort to put underneath a beer whose entire ambition is to be so clean and drinkable that nobody thinks about it. Which, if you have spent any time at a fest tent, is exactly the correct ambition.

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.