CulturAle Press

Mad Fox Hitzig Frau Oktoberfest 2018

Date:  November 11, 2018

The Story— Mad Fox is our go to local brewery.  We have plenty of choices, but we’ve known the owner, Bill Madden, for years.  Bill is an icon in the Washington DC brewing scene, not only brewing superb beers in several breweries before he opened his own, but training a cadre of brewers who are turning out really good beer all over the Old Dominion.

We first ran into one of Bill’s Hitzig Frau Oktoberfests in 2001 when he was brewing for Capitol City and brought the beer to one of the Brickskeller’s legendary tastings.  We liked it, but his more recent versions have soared by comparison.   He brews what he calls a modern Oktoberfest, and in many ways it’s pretty close.   The modern Oktoberfest beers served in the tents in Munich are lighter even that Bill’s version and have a less pronounced flavor profile.   Oktoberfest beers at the Oktoberfest are designed to be beers that thousands of people want to down by the liter.   To reserve a table in one of the tents you have to commit to ten chickens and twenty liters of beer.   You pay for that in advance and the table is then yours without further charge.  To get 9 of your best friends to commit to drinking two liters (they are never filled to a true measure, though) the beer had better be pretty inoffensive.

Mad Fox Oltoberfest beers are a light amber and are thus clearly lighter that the “traditional” style that is a dark amber.  More importantly, they are better balanced than most of the sweet fest beers you’ll run into in Germany.   We’ve hit maybe a half dozen, most of them in recent years, that use enough hops to reach the Mad Fox balance in this beer.   Unlike the Munich brewers and many of the Bavarian brewers, Bill, and his brewer Matt Ryan, used a good deal of Perle hops in this year’s version.  Perle is used extensively in Austrian and Swiss beers and finds its way to German beers as well.   It worked well this year to create a spiciness that helped support the beer’s balance.

The Beer—  This year’s version is a well balanced but still an authentic fest beer you could find in a small German town.  Perle hops give a nice spice as well as doing a good job of balancing the sweet malt.  The herbal flavors of the hops and the sweet caramel of the malt dance nicely together.    Ellie found a touch of metal; I agreed, but found more copper.  Whatever the metal, helps in the balance as it drinks.

Value — Excellent, especially at the brewery on Tuesdays for their half-price growler fills.

 This week we focus on the US to highlight some great American craft beers, some of which we’ve found in researching out first US Beer publication: Brews and Snooze-– Breweries you can visit and walk back to a fine place to spend the night.  Look for it in 2019.

Next week we return to  HIGHLIGHTS OF EUROPE–  Surprisingly good beer in “bad beer cities.”  The best we’ve found in researching our next book – a guide to great beer in European tourist cities. (Planned publication 2019.)   We’ll shift back to great American beer finds next week.

 About these posts:  We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year.  The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings.   Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.