i did a side by side of schlafly & sam adams oktoberfests last month. sam wins, but not by much. sam is ultra sweet, to the point that i got burnt out after a couple cases...

schlafly is not as sweet, finish is not as good, but it's not a big difference in my taste bud opinion.

if schlafly was as cheap as sammy, i would have bought 4 cases of it instead.

oh yeah, i think there is a big difference in the taste profiles between german oktos and these two american oktos, so if you just drank some paulaner, i would think you'd notice the american one's to be a lot sweeter and not as dry as the kraut's.