4 of Our Favorite Wisconsin Oktoberfest Beers - Milwaukee Magazine

OK, let’s parse this out. Oktoberfest beers are named for the big celebration first thrown in Munich in 1810 for the wedding of Bavaria’s Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. Despite the name, the festival that has become the world’s largest beer party takes place the last two weeks of September and the first week of October.

But here in America, the beers that have adopted this widely recognized name (amber lagers, usually märzen, festbiers or Vienna lagers) usually come out in August or earlier. That owes to modern brewery schedules, typically broken up into quarters. And good luck selling a beer with a name or packaging referencing a season or holiday – spring, summer, Christmas, you name it – after that period has passed. While drinkers think of the appearance of a certain beer, brewers think of “seasons” from the endpoint and work backward....