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Today's blog is about yesterday's rookie mistake.  So, I bought a sample case of Atwater Brewery beer about a month or more ago.  In the variety pack was a Bloktoberfest beer - clearly Octoberfest otherwise known as a Marzen style beer.  This is a specific style of beer with a great history.  It was a style that was brewed for a large Wedding Party that extended many days back in Germany many years ago.  You can google the history for sure - I'm no historian by any stretch.  The fact is this style has been around for ever.  Apparently, that was the problem with my Atwater Bloktoberfest, it has been around to long!

I had a sip of this beer last night and instantly new something was a miss.  I like a good Octoberfest with the best of them.  I'm not a expert on the style, but they are usually a nice clear brown (red almost) beer, with heavy malt flavors and some hoppy goodness that is used to store the beer for the time needed to drink.  Its usually pretty medium bodied (almost heavy) beer that to me I could drink all day long ( tell me again why I haven't gotten to the 'Mother Land' to experience the real thing again?  At least it is on my bucket list ).  Anyway, this beer poured a really redish brown almost "purple'sh hue" color to it; which was my first what?  Secondly, drinking it had a really OFF taste to it.  Could it have been skunked?  Well, then I looked at the bottle and it was Dated Aug 2011.  Typical lager ales have a shelf life of 3-4 months.  So this beer needs to be finished by October (not really why it is an Octoberfest but of course it is slightly related) to enjoy what this beer was made to taste.  October 2011 has long gone as has the taste of this bottle of beer.  I am not blaming Atwater Brewery for this failure and there for can not judge this beer fairly.  That said, you will see a score on my score sheet with an (*) beside it.  I will be scoring this low with a not at the bottom of the page stating that this beer had been skunked from aging.

Was this Atwater's fault for shipping late?  Was the distributor I bought it at not watching their inventory?  I would guess most likely the distributor was at fault.  They are not my favorite place to get beer.  They definitely do not cater to the better beers but they do carry them.  I just think they do not get the turn around on quality beers at this place and lesson learned by me - I have to be careful what I buy from there.  I do see they have "sales" occasionally on cases that obviously are out of date.  Must have missed this one.  I just hope the other beers I have in this case are not equally skunked.  That will make me a sad beer drinker.  And nothing worse then a sad beer drinker!