For as far back as I can remember, Thursday nights have always been poker night in my neck of the woods. And let's face it, what is poker night without beer? I mean, I guess technically it is still poker night, but it's kind of a boring version of it don't you think? When you think about it, they just seem to go together. Poker and beer. Kind of like BrewChief.com and the straight brew truth. You could try to come up with a better match, but the odds of that happening are slim to none. The only real drawback I can think of would have to do with selection. Now I'm not going to say that I haven't been to poker games where they had a really good brew selection, but I will say that games like that are few and far between. So these days I try and make it a practice of bringing my own when possible. And it would figure that the last time I was going to play, I forgot to bring anything and was in a mad dash to locate literally anything that didn't look like mass produced toilet swill. Imagine my surprise when I ran into the last gas station between me and my stop, and saw the Leinenkugel's Oktoberfest from Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company sitting amongst the garbage ''beers''.

Obviously, my choice was easy, and I grabbed a six pack and ran out. Once at the game, I was quick to tear the cap off and dive right in. As far as appearance goes, I really can't say. My level of beer arrogance only goes so far, and asking for a glass as a guest in someones house is a little beyond its reach. I did manage to steal a sniff or two directly from the bottle before my first sip. Nothing to get overly excited about was found, but some traces of caramel, toasted bread, and very faint hops could be detected.

When I knocked it back for the first sip, I was actually a little surprised. It was one of those moments where you take a sip, and then hold the bottle away from you and down a little bit as you say ''Hey, thats not half bad''. The flavors followed the nose pretty closely, with just the added bonus of a slight hint of pepper tossed in with the caramel. Granted, there were times it came off as a bit thin or watered down, but never to the point of making me run to the trash can to throw it away. Actually, before I even realized it, I had already worked my way through two of them and was happily opening my third.

The Leinenkugel's Oktoberfest will probably never make its way onto the ''Best of'' list as far as Oktoberfest beers go. But that's not to say that it doesn't have a place in our better beer world. I think I would classify it as an ''In the moment'' brew. It's one of those beers where you could easily enjoy a few on one night and then three days later not even remember you had it. It's not the best example of the style, so saying it would make a great bridge beer might be a bit of a stretch, but it would at least allow you to dip your toes into the water and get at least a feel for what the style offers. Worst case scenario, at least now you know about another beer that could save you in a mass produced wasteland.