Märzens are one of my favorite beer varieties. Since they generally only come out around Oktoberfest, I usually try to go heavy on my märzen drinking every fall. I once purchased Schlenkerla’s Märzen, expecting my usual, delightfully sweet and malty Bavarian märzen and got the biggest surprise of my alcohol-consuming life. I saw “Märzen” on the label and assumed it was a normal Märzen. Boy was I wrong. It’s not that smoked beers are off-putting per se. It’s more that it’s a flavor that’s as far as you can get as possible from a regular märzen. Once I processed that I was actually drinking a smoked beer, I enjoyed it. But that first shock…
Clay Risen of The Atlantic’s Mixmaster blog has a good write-up on Schlenerkla’s smoked beers.
A Jigger of Blog 
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