This week as part of Oktoberfest Week I’ll actually be re-running some past reviews of various Oktoberfest-style beers—it turns out I’ve written reviews on at least seven beers in the style already. I know, I know, it feels a bit like cheating, but I figure, it’s a good, available resource, and there are probably a bunch of readers who haven’t gone and read through all my archives. So where I’m posting a rerun, I’ll note that.

It turns out I’ve reviewed one of the world class examples of the style, Paulaner Oktoberfest-Märzen, twice already: in 2006 and in 2007. From my 2007 review, my “Overall” note reads: “Like I said, it exemplifies the style. One of the best.”

I’m not sure if I was aware of my 2006 review when I wrote the 2007 one, so it’s interesting to compare the two separated by a year to see the similarities and differences. So here’s a geeky thing; I’ll run the reviews in a side-by-side to compare. (I’ve edited down for brevity; you can read the full reviews at the links.)

It seems fairly consistent to me, which really should be no surprise—this truly is one of the world classics.

On BeerAdvocate, the up-to-date overall grade it receives is B+, and it’s on their Top 10 beers for the Oktoberfest style. On RateBeer, well, I can’t give you their current rating because as of this writing, the page is down and Google has the site red-flagged as a “site that may harm your computer.” Uh-oh.