I don’t care what it’s called—I prefer my Maibock in the fall, which means now is the time to get brewing it! Maibock is one of the less-well-defined styles out there, so your and others’ interpretations may vary, but I like to confound expectations with this one. When most people hear “bock,” they think malt—and there’s no question this is a malty beer. But you can lean on other flavor elements to make it interesting, and—done well—the result is much more than just a “strong Helles” or a “pale bock” as style guidelines so often describe it.
Style
Maibock (sometimes called Helles Bock) is a strong-ish German lager, generally paler in color than its “bock-ier” siblings and with less reliance on the rich melanoidin characters that define those beers. Hops are also (potentially) more prominent in Maibock, and from a conceptual standpoint, it mirrors the way we look at bières de garde: the paler versions are a bit more crisp and hoppy while darker versions lean more on the malt. The same logic holds for Maibock relative to Bock and Dopplebock. It’s a pretty straightforward style: Pils malt, some melanoidin character, some light hopping, and stronger than the other pale German lagers. Easy, right?
Yes, and no.