On September 1st something pretty amazing happens in the beer world in Sweden because that’s the day September turns into October and stays that way until Christmas.

Next Wednesday marks the annual release of Oktoberfest beers at the Systembolaget and this year you’re being really spoilt for choice with no fewer than 12 Oktoberfest beers being released to celebrate the world’s largest annual beer party.

The sheer scale of the 16-day long festival held in Munich in late September to early October easily qualifies it as a ‘must-have beery experience before you die’. Just check out the stats:

• Over 6 MILLION people will attend the festival. That’s a LOT of lederhosen!
• Between them they will drink over 6.6 MILLION litres of Oktoberfest beer traditionally produced by six Munich breweries: Augustiner, Paulaner, Spaten-Franziskaner, Löwenbräu, Hacker-Pschorr and Hofbräu.
• With all that beer sloshing about festival-goers need something to eat too, and last year they scoffed their way through 488,137 pieces of chicken and 116, 923 pairs of pork sausages.
  

But what exactly is Oktoberfest beer and why do we get to drink it in September?

This picture sent to me from Carlsberg could be a contender for Beer is Art! Here are three of the 12 Oktoberfest beers going on sale at the monopoly next week. Spaten is a particular favourite of mine!

Oktoberfest beer has sprung out of the Märzen beer style, a beer (named after the month of March in German) brewed in – you’ve guessed it – March and stored in the cool caves around the city before the warmer summer months arrived and made brewing impossible. This underground beer stash would be drawn upon during the summer and finally exhausted around October. Märzenbier has a malty aroma and is a medium-strong version of the amber-red Vienna lager style.

In recent times a paler version of Märzen called Oktoberfestbier has been developed to suit more ‘international tastes’, which in my world means they’ve dumbed it down a little bit to appeal to the masses. It is normally around 5-6% ABV and moderately hopped, with a pronounced malt flavour and aroma and smooth, clean finish. Traditional Märzen beer is still brewed by many Bavarian breweries around October time.

Oktoberfest beer has become hugely popular in other parts of the world, particularly the US and even here in Sweden where a quarter of this year’s Oktoberfest beer release has been brewed.

The Oktoberfest itself was first held back on October 12, 1810 to honour the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen (try saying that quickly after downing a mass – the traditional one litre glass of beer served at the festival!)

Many years later the festival, which by this time was a huge annual event, was moved back into September to take advantage of the better weather conditions and now normally takes place during the sixteen days up to and including the first Sunday in October.

So it’s the cold Autumnal weather that means we get to drink Oktoberfest beers in September.

Of the 12 Oktoberfest beers being released next Wednesday 4 of them come from the 6 Munich breweries traditionally represented every year at the festival, four come from right here in Sweden, one from Finland, one from the US and the last one from Germany (which also happens to be the second oldest brewery in the world).

A full list of all the Oktoberfest beers going on sale next week has been posted by Magnus over at his brilliant Ofiltrerat blog.

Prost!