08/25/2026
We’re honored to be in some pretty great company! 🍻
Our Oktoberfest was named one of Northeast Ohio Craft Beverage News' Top 5 Festbiers! 🎉 Oktoberfest hits the taps tomorrow at noon!
Cheers to great local beer, and thanks for including us among so many fantastic breweries! 🍺 Prost!
🚨🍺 IT’S TIME.
NEOCBN POWER RANKINGS: NORTHEAST OHIO’S TOP 20 MÄRZENS & FESTBIERS — THE TOP FIVE
Twenty rankings.
Fifteen spots are off the board. One tie.
Some of Northeast Ohio’s biggest brewery names are already gone.
Now we’re down to five.
And if you expected this to end with the usual Cleveland heavyweights sitting comfortably at the top…
Keep reading.
🍺 5. Hansa Brewery — OKTOBERFEST/FESTBIER | CLEVELAND
If there’s one place on this list where German beer isn’t merely a seasonal exercise, it’s Hansa.
Traditional European beer styles are central to what Hansa does, and its fall lager delivers the malt character, clean fermentation and drinkability we want from the style.
Hansa makes our Top Five.
🍺 4. JAFB Wooster Brewery — OKTOBERFEST | WOOSTER
Don’t sleep on Wooster.
Toasty. Bready. Clean. Highly drinkable.
JAFB has quietly produced one of Northeast Ohio’s standout Oktoberfest beers, and it came awfully close to our podium.
JAFB takes #4.
🥉 3. Lockport Brewery — OKTOBERFEST | BOLIVAR
🚨 SURPRISE.
If Lockport wasn’t on your Oktoberfest radar before this ranking, it should be now.
This is exactly the sort of beer we hoped to uncover by looking beyond Northeast Ohio’s biggest and most familiar breweries: a beautifully executed Märzen coming out of Bolivar that can stand alongside anything in the region.
🥉 Lockport takes the bronze.
🥈 2. Noble Beast Brewing Co. — OKTOBERFEST | CLEVELAND
This one had a legitimate argument for #1.
Noble Beast has developed one of Northeast Ohio’s most respected lager programs, and its Oktoberfest shows exactly why.
Clean fermentation. Beautiful malt character without becoming heavy. Exceptional balance.
It also has Cleveland Oktoberfest competition hardware behind it.
On almost any Northeast Ohio Oktoberfest list, this could be the champion.
But we found one beer we couldn’t put behind it.
👑🥇 1. Wooly Pig Farm Brewery — FESTBIER | FRESNO
THERE’S YOUR CHAMPION.
Not Cleveland.
Not Akron.
Not one of Northeast Ohio’s biggest breweries.
Fresno, Ohio.
And this isn’t an obscure pick simply for the sake of having an obscure pick.
Traditional German-style lagers are at the heart of what Wooly Pig does, and its Festbier is a showcase of why the brewery has developed such a devoted following.
Clean. Balanced. Exceptionally drinkable. Traditional without being boring.
After working through this entire field, this was the beer we couldn’t justify putting behind another.
👑 WOOLY PIG FARM BREWERY FESTBIER IS NEOCBN’S #1 MÄRZEN/FESTBIER IN NORTHEAST OHIO.
🏆 THE TOP FIVE
🥇 1. Wooly Pig Farm Brewery — Festbier | Fresno
🥈 2. Noble Beast — Oktoberfest | Cleveland
🥉 3. Lockport Brewery — Oktoberfest | Bolivar
4️⃣ 4. JAFB Wooster — Oktoberfest | Wooster
5️⃣ 5. Hansa — Oktoberfest/Festbier | Cleveland
Take a look at that geography.
Fresno. Cleveland. Bolivar. Wooster. Cleveland.
Three of our Top Five come from outside Cuyahoga County.
And that may be our favorite takeaway from this entire exercise.
Great beer doesn’t care about the size of the brewery or how famous the logo is.
🔥 Who’s too high?
🔥 Who’s too low?
🔥 Who got robbed?
And most importantly:
👇 WHAT’S YOUR #1 NORTHEAST OHIO MÄRZEN OR FESTBIER?
TOMORROW AT 7 PM: The complete #20-to- #1 ranking in one place — plus our Honorable Mentions.
🍻 PROST!
