Joe Stange

Whatever its strength, whatever its story, and whatever its color—amber or gold?—festbier ought to be drinkable in quantity. Here we dissect the diverging styles to find out what makes a great (Oktober)festbier tick.

• Lager
• Oktoberfest
• Oktoberfestbier

Brewed since 1988, Bell's founder Larry Bell has called Cherry Stout the complex “pinot noir” of his brewery’s range. Its origins, however, are far simpler: It all started at homebrew club meetings in Kalamazoo.

• Stout
• Fruit
• Fruited Stout

At Wolf’s Ridge in Columbus, Ohio, head brewer Chris Davison leads a flavor-forward beer program with roots in experimental homebrewing and a growing pile of accolades.

• Breakout Brewer
• Ohio
• Cream Ale

Evan Price, cofounder and head brewer at Green Cheek, is winning medals and brewing the kinds of IPAs he enjoys most, applying a skill set that he’s picked up the hard way.

• Breakout Brewer
• Green Cheek
• IPA

Named for the creek on the edge of our Missouri farm, this straightforward recipe is a recent iteration of the type of saison I like to brew often: light, dry, and smoothly bitter, with plenty of herbal hop flavor to balance the yeast-driven spice.

• Beer Recipe
• Saison

A brief chapter in the latest adventures of the “Rarest Barrel,” pH1.

• Rare Barrel
• Side Project
• Chill Plate

Even in 20th century Belgium, “saison” was interpreted in different ways. Those interpretations continue to branch off into myriad ways today.

• Saison
• Belgium

Yvan De Baets, cofounder and head brewer at the Brasserie de la Senne in Brussels, has been researching (and brewing) saison for more than two decades. He has argued that “yeast is the biggest myth about saison.” We asked him to elaborate.

• Saison
• Yeast
• Belgian Beer

In Munich in 1872, the famous Schottenhamel tent needed more beer. Josef Sedlmayer had beer to sell ... but it was a stronger lager brewed in the Viennese style. Thanks to beer historian Andreas Krennmair, we have an educated guess about the recipe.

• Beer Recipe
• Festbier
• Oktoberfest

Based on some details shared by Pierre-Alex Carlier, here is a homebrew recipe inspired by the world-classic Saison d’Epeautre.

• Saison
• Beer Recipe

Saison is a dynamic creature—ever-evolving, open to interpretation, and grounded in a myth that is basically true. It chafes at hermetically sealed definitions and style guidelines. Plot twist: You get to write its next chapter.

• Saison
• Farmhouse Ales
• Yeast

This “bread IPA,” with a profile like a big, bitter British ESB, gets extra character and body from the addition of crusty, unsold loaves from Brussels supermarkets—promoting a less wasteful economy while suggesting new avenues for flavor experimentation.

• Beer Recipe
• ESB
• IPA