Märzen Madness
Get ready for the “oom-pah-pah” with this Oktoberfest beer. Accurately capture the spirit of the beer by brewing the batch in March and lager until late September. Gather your friends and give a shout of “O'zapft is!” (“It's tapped”), grab a bratwurst, and have a party.
Style: Märzen/Oktoberfest
Brew Type: All Grain
For 5.5 gallons at 1.058, 9.8 SRM, 23.5IBUs, 5.7 percent ABV
75-minute boil
Directions
Follow the Multistep Brew Process.
Separately collect the first gallon of your runnings and boil vigorously to reduce to a half gallon. Add this caramelized wort back to the rest of the runnings.
Ferment at 50°F for two weeks. Raise the temperature to 60°F for 36 hours before returning to 50°F. Rack to secondary and slowly reduce the temperature to 35°F and hold there for a minimum of 4 weeks.
6.25 pounds Pilsner Malt
3.5 pounds Munich Malt (Light)
1.00 pound Vienna Malt
1.00 pound Crystal 40L
4.50 pounds Lager Liquid Malt Extract (LME)
1.75 pounds Munich Liquid Malt Extract (LME)
0.75 ounce Tettnannger Tettnang (4.9 percent AA) Pellet for First Wort Hopping
0.40 ounce Hallertauer (4.4 percent AA) Pellet for 40 minutes
0.40 ounce Hallertauer (4.4 percent AA) Pellet for 20 minutes
1 tablet Whirlfloc
1 tablespoon Yeast Nutrient
Wyeast 2308 Munich Lager
Protein Rest 120°F 30 minutes
Saccharification Rest 153°F 45 minutes
TIP
The Munich lager strain is a notorious diacetyl producer. Scrub the butter with a diacetyl rest, the brief fermentation rest at 60°F. The yeast transforms diacetyl into the flavorless chemical, butanediol.
Märzen is German for March, the last month of brewing before the legally mandated summer hiatus. Developed in the 1840s, the original versions were strong and copper brown. Aged for the summer in the lagering caves, this was the original beer of Oktoberfest.
The Munich dunkel took advantage of the water, piling on darker malts to make a deeply brown beer with toffee, caramel, and nutty flavors. As the style travelled around Germany, it took on different hues. Out of this was born the schwarzbier. The modern schwarzbier is as dark as a porter, but without the acrid roast character. The beer finishes dry after a faint caramel toffee flavor. This is the application for Carafa dehusked malt. It gives color and soft roasted-coffee tones with toffee flavor.
