Our “Original Hochzeitsbier von 1810” goes back to the Original “Maerzen-style beer” that was served in 1810. Relative to today’s “adjusted” Octoberfestbiers it is much darker in color, much stronger in alc/vol, and much more full-bodied!
Just the way beers were brewed around that time!
This beer is the end result of a lot of research by the head brewer at Hofstetten. We asked him to “throw out the rulebook” and the preconceived “definition” of Maerzen/Oktoberfestbier that Spaten set well after the royal wedding that established the tradition. His research of beers of 1810 (the year of the royal wedding commemorated by Oktoberfest) led him to this beer. I have translated from German the “broad strokes”:
“Indications of color seem contradictory, but original gravity is very clear: 14 degrees Plato, resulting in a be er of 6%. IBU’s should be around 21, using Spalter Select and Tradition, the latter of which is of Bavarian origin.
Further research on color of the “original Festbier” show values as low as 7 EBC but there is lots in the high 20’s EBC that was found. The debate was whether to go just a bit darker than the U.S.-version (of their) Kuebelbier, namely 1810 at 12 EBC’s of color, or up to the darkest Festbiers of the day at 32.5 EBC’s. One thing was for sure, that Munich malt needed to be the basis. Filters weren’t used widely in Bavaria until 1900 so the beer had to have been unfiltered”.
Hofstetten's Original Hochzeitsbier von 1810
Alc./Vol.: 6.3
