Fair enough.
It’s interesting you are easily convinced hops have terroir but evidently not grain. Throw in some different genetics plus the terroir and I believe the taste is different.
Not one better than the other …just different.
If one malt is not different than another why have a malt cup or avoid a mega maltster? There wouldn’t be any difference.
Thanks! I will research these.
If one malt is not different than another why have a malt cup or avoid a mega maltster? There wouldn’t be any difference.
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The different maltsters do often end up with a difference in the final products due to proprietary processes.
I agree with this also. Last time I checked domestic and continental maltsters are different. Therefore, the malts taste different.
I think terroir definitely affects grain as much as it does hops. I certainly didn’t mean to imply there was no difference. There’s a huge difference.
Back in the day I remember people suggesting that you use American 2-row or American Pilsner malt if you wanted to make an “American Lager” because most everyday beer drinkers that are used to American Lager would think that a beer made with Euro malts has too much flavor. I have to say that I never tried it but imagine a beer made with American 2-row, maybe some Vienna or Munich so the beer doesn’t look like Zima, some flake corn, etc. It would probably taste like bland, American beer. 
That was before the proliferation of craft malt.
That’s true. I have used some Full Pint Pilsner as well as Rahr and Briess Pilsen malt (the Briess Pilsen malt was on sale at LP for $29 a sack! I couldn’t afford NOT to buy it :P) and those malts made decent beer here. But when I buy something like Pilsner malt, I don’t like to be surprised. Best Malz, Swaen and Avangard have made excellent beers here and not just German-style beers but Mexican-style and US styles too. Occasionally I’ll get lucky and find Weyermann Barke Pils at a decent price too.
I stock two base malts in my brewery; namely, Avangard Pilsner and British Pale. My current British Pale is Fawcett Golden Promise, which is amazingly good considering the fact that people prefer Simpsons. However, I am focused on brewing the styles that I cannot easily acquire fresh. Avangard Pilsner is an amazing versitile base malt. It has enough “graham cracker” to make German styles, but not enough to restrict its use to those styles. I have used craft malt from Riverbend (Southern Select, Appalachian Wheat, and Carolina Rye). While better than Briess, that is not a high bar to hurdle.
Agree on the Avangard Pilsner and also the Fawcett GP. I found a sack of that GP at one of my local supply houses and I believe the sack was close to $100. Yes, I bought it and it made outstanding bitters, ESB, Pale Ales, etc. I will take a flyer on things occasionally but I do not want a full sack of malt that I don’t care for so I tend to stick to what I know.
Wow! A 25kg sack of TF Golden Promise set me back $60. That is more than I pay for other imported malts. I was kind of bummed out when I learned that a lot of brewers prefer Simpsons when I purchased it, but it is a very clean tasting British malt. The British malt notes are there without the musty wet basement notes that are common with other British offerings.
Regarding 55lb sacks, Weyermann and Ireks is what you find in our brew pantry.
We have had extremely good luck with both of these.
Typically Munich, Floor Malted Bohemian Pils, Pale Malt, and Vienna is what’s on hand.
But, Sierra Nevada seems to use 2-row pale in their Oktoberfest every year, even the good years.
Just had the Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest beer. Did not care for it.
+1
We stopped at Sierra Nevada in Mills River, NC and I tried their 2021 Octoberfest a couple of weeks ago. Not a fan of this year’s version. I hope they get back to the collaboration version.
Do they not have a set recipe for this? They change it every year? Is this the case with most brewers? How about Boston Beer Company?
I was told at the brewery that SN changes the recipe for their Octoberfest every year. Not certain about Boston Brewing, but highly suspect they do as well.
For awhile there I looked forward to various Oktoberfests that US Breweries would put out… SN, Sam Adams, Leinie and a few others. Eventually I tasted authentic Marzens from Hacker-Pschorr, Paulaner, etc. and realized that the US versions are often too sweet as has been mentioned in this thread. A more authentic version is drier, crisper and breadier and that good bread flavor (and most of the color) should be coming from good, dark Munich malt like Weyermann, Best Malz or Avangard. Depending on how much color a beer like that has, I could see some American breweries saying that they could just get that color from crystal malt but that would be a mistake if you wanted to make an authentic version of it. That said, some US breweries do make a nice Oktoberfest and honestly… Leinie’s version is not bad. It’s not as dark or sweet as some of the others. I made a Festbier/Oktoberfest/Tent Bier about six weeks ago that is super simple: 65% Pilsner, 35% Dark Munich (mine was Avangard), one addition of Spalt Select for about 25 IBUs from the start of the boil and 2124 for the yeast. Simple, crisp, balanced, bready. Looking forward to tapping it in a couple weeks here.
sn changes their recipe yearly. Recently, it has been more of an actual festbier doing collabs with german breweries. Boston Beer is garbage in my opinion…
What didn’t you like?