Harpoon Brewery's Octoberfest Beer

You might wanna turn this on as you read.

I, like most people (drunks), love the autumn. It is the season of sweaters, scarves and dark beers. You have your pumpkin boozes and Octoberfest hooch; both of which contain the alcohol. Now I've been called a glutton before and I am okay with that; as I took the liberty of having a few scotches the one night washing them down with 11 of these babies. Was it smart? Yes. Would I do it again? Certainly. Should I do it again. Most definitely not.

I talked about the Harpoon Brewery here and talked about their UFO White here. This lager is often referred to as a Marzen (pronounced "marts-in") which is Bangladeshian or something for March. So these Marzen would be stored around that time and left to ferment and be tapped after the summer. If I made a Marzen I'd name it Marzen Slaughter and you'd have to be tough as nails to drink it, because I'd put on nail at the bottom on each bottle.

Now this beer is pretty good. It has a full bodied, malty aroma, with a touch of bitter and nut. The taste is malty and bitter; they use pale and chocolate malts in this and the bitterness is most likely attributed their Willamette hops, which you might remember from Troegs Hopback, and gives it a dry aftertaste. Now dry aftertastes are good if you want to drink a lot of beer because you get thirsty, but bad if you are trying to stay sober.

This pup has 30 IBUs, a 5.5% ABV and can make ya blow a .25 on a breathalyzer bitches! I didn't blow that but I'm sure if you drink enough of them it'd be pretty easy. I respect Harpoon for knocking out more autumn beers in the rotation than their regular beers but this beer isn't like a fantastic beer. It tastes like fall, if you catch what I mean. It makes you wanna drive around with your buddies, turn on some Steve Winwood, and watch 10 year old kids begrudgingly rake up leaves while their dads watch football. God Bless America! Call me sentimental but this is my first beer of the autumn and it chokes me up a little bit.

I picked up a 12-pack for about $14 bucks, not too bad. I got to see some underage kid try to use a fake ID also, that that made the trip that much more enjoyable. Harpoon is a respected brand so if you roll to a tailgate party at some high school all the junior varsity guys will think you are the shit. But as far as getting it again, like I said, there are so many autumn beers out there but this is a great place to start!

Drinkability: 6/10

Taste: 6/10

Value: 4/10
Curb Appeal: 6/10

Overall: 5.5/10