Top to bottom: Leiden, Dante

Märzen and Oktoberfest

STYLE NOTES: In the days before refrigeration, Bavarian brewers depended on cold weather and natural ice to keep fermentations and finished brews cool. Brewing followed more seasonal rhythms then, often ceasing during the summer months, when beer so easily spoiled. Typically, the last lager of the spring season would be brewed in March and stored in cool natural caves or underground cellars over the summer. With care and luck, the March beer—or Märzenbier—would still be in good shape and in good supply for autumn harvest celebrations. By the late nineteenth century, malty Märzen-style beer had come to symbolize Oktoberfest, Munich’s world-renowned outdoor fair.

In Germany today, only a handful of Munich breweries have the legal right to brew Oktoberfestbier and supply the festival. American craft brewers can ignore German law, of course, and many produce a seasonal Oktoberfest, among the most popular of brewpub styles.

To most consumers, little differentiates an Oktoberfest from its predecessor, Märzen, which some brewers make and bottle year-round. Both are medium-bodied, malt-focused beers with low-level bitterness and little hop aroma. Oktoberfest brews tend to be golden in hue, with Märzens mostly darker, leaning toward amber or auburn. Both open with malty sweetness—more toasted bread than caramel—but finish dry. Both are moderately effervescent, sometimes creamy but never cloying.

Topping out at around 6 percent alcohol, Oktoberfest and Märzen steer clear of pretention. These are easy-drinking stein beers, not offended by a thick glass mug.

BEERS TO TRY: Ayinger Oktoberfest; Boulevard Brewing Bob’s ’47 Oktoberfest; Gordon Biersch Märzen; Grand Teton Fest Bier Märzen Lager; Heavy Seas Märzen; Paulaner Oktoberfest Märzen; Samuel Adams Oktoberfest; Sudwerk Märzen .

CHEESE AFFINITIES: The malty nature of Märzen and Oktoberfest makes the case for aged cheese, the kind with the toasted-nut, brown-butter, or caramel aromas that malt complements. Consider mature sheep’s milk wheels in the style of Manchego or Abbaye de Belloc; nutty alpine-style cheeses similar to Comté; Cheddars that are more mellow than tangy; and Gouda-like cheeses made with any type of milk.

Cabot Clothbound Cheddar originated from an unlikely collaboration between Vermont’s largest cheese producer (Cabot Creamery, a fourteen-hundred-member cooperative) and one of its smallest, Jasper Hill Farm. Cabot’s crew had plenty of experience making rindless block Cheddar in sealed plastic bags but little expertise in traditional English-style wheels, which mature in contact with air. So they turned to neighboring Jasper Hill, whose proprietors have developed a specialty in affinage, or cheese maturation. Cabot starts the cheese-making process, producing 35-pound wheels from pasteurized cow’s milk from a single farm. But when the cheeses are less than a week old, they move to the underground cellars at Jasper Hill. They remain there for about a year, time enough for a rind to develop and for flavor to bloom. A mature Cabot Clothbound Cheddar offers aromas of freshly mown grass, toasted nuts, toffee, and candle wax. Less tangy than English Cheddars, with little or no acid bite, it has a gentle sweetness that responds to a malt-forward Märzen.

Dutch Leiden bears a strong resemblance to Gouda, Holland’s best-known cheese. Leiden (or Leyden) is slightly lower in fat but made in the same shape and by a similar method. But whereas some Gouda has spices added, Leiden always does. Whole cumin seeds fleck its pale gold interior, infusing the smooth, semisoft to semifirm paste with a warm, spicy scent. Leiden’s mellow flavor results from a technique called curd washing. Rinsing the fresh curds with water yields a “sweeter” cheese in the end, with lower acidity and little or no tang. A wedge of Leiden makes a satisfying lunch with whole-grain bread, sliced sweet onions, and mustard—and a mug of Märzen or Oktoberfest beer to complete the picture.

A creation of the Wisconsin Sheep Dairy Cooperative, Dante is a seasonal cheese, made only between February and September and aged for about six months. A mature ten-pound wheel has a firm, dry, golden interior—darker than most comparable sheep’s milk cheeses—with abundant aromas of toasted nuts and brown butter and a sweetness that lingers. A malt-forward brew like a Märzen or Oktoberfest hits a lot of the same flavor notes.

MORE CHEESES TO TRY: Abbaye de Belloc; Abondance; Barinaga Ranch Baserri; Beehive Cheese Barely Buzzed; Garrotxa; Jura du Montagne; Midnight Moon; Parmigiano Reggiano; Pleasant Ridge Reserve; Stilton; Tumalo Farms Fenacho; Vermont Shepherd Cheese; Zamorano.