Birthday Märzenbier

I'm posting this a little late but my birthday was November 22nd.  For my Birthday I received some grain and hops and I decided to do a little brew/birth-day.  My favorite beer to drink would be an IPA but my second favorite is definitely Marzen lager or Oktoberfest.

Here's the recipe:

8 lbs. Pilsner Malt
4.5 lbs. Vienna Malt
8 oz. Carapils
8 oz. Caramel 40L
2 oz. Mt. Hood 60 mins
1 oz. Hallertau 2 mins

I didn't do anything too epic in the process.  I had a nice steady mash temperature of 151 degrees.  I thought about batch sparging, but since Marzens are very malty beers I decided to just sparge on the fly.  I did a 60 minute boil adding two ounces of Mt. Hood for my bittering hop.

I pitched the Wyeast Bavarian Lager Yeast and let it sit for two weeks at 50 degrees.  I lager it in a keg for 4 weeks at 40 degrees.

The beer turned out nice, it has nice head retention and a sweet malty aroma.  It reminds me of Ayinger or the more traditional Oktoberfests.  Its a little sweet but that could be because of my colder lagering temps.  It still has a great Amber color and it cleared out very nicely.  I am excited too because today I have a 50 lb. bag of 2-row Barley showing up in the mail with enough yeast and hops for 4 recipes.  So more on this to follow...