#4-melba-hiffs

9/28/25: Northern Row's Schwester

This is the penultimate Oktoberfest post of 2025, which features a lager I picked up in July. It's been sitting in my fridge since, waiting patiently for this evening. So, let's go. Here's Northern Row's take on an Oktoberfest lager: Schwester. Northern Row's located in Cincinnati, OH's Over-the-Rhine. They're focused on crafting innovative beer out of their home in a pre-Prohibition brewery stock house. You can find a little more info over on their "Northern Row Beer" page . If you explore their website, you'll also find that they distill spirits. Schwester (located on the page hyperlinked in the above paragraph) is a 5.6% ABV festbier brewed in collaboration with Meckesheim, Germany's Schumi's Mecksebräu . For those wondering, the connection with Meckesheim is that it's the sister city of Harrison (a city just west of Cincinnati). The nose on my can is subdued. All the same, what little I find is clean, hoppy, biscuity, and bready. That's all there is to it. There isn't any malt