Introduction to the Oktoberfest

Picture of typical German dresses

Oktoberfest is only a couple of days away, and I’ve learned so much about this beer festival from just talking to people, from my teachers, from reading and from watching TV that I had to put it all in writing and share it. Yesterday, I also decided to go to the place where the Oktoberfest is held to look at how everything was being set up: the tents, the rides, the booths, the kiosks with food etc; and of course I made some pictures during the tour. I’m really glad I went. It gave me a chance to look at the place without the millions of visitors that will be there next week and it gave me also the chance to go inside the majority of the tents; something that I think will be very difficult to do next week. After seeing the place I’m all excited and really looking forward the “Wiesn” (that is how lots of locals call the Oktoberfest. Later you’ll learn why). I have already made plans with different groups of people to go to Oktobefest and I can´t hardly wait. Not that I´m necessarily the biggest beer lover but there is such a good vibe around it and in the city as a whole that I´m sure it will be lots of fun.

The first Oktoberfest was held in 1810 as an invitation from the royal family to the commoners of Bavaria to celebrate King Ludwig’s marriage to princess Therese of SachsenHildburghausen. No wonder then that the place where it is held is called Theresienwiese (this is why locals call the festival “Wiesn”) or Therese’s Medow; a big fairground close to Munich’s downtown which hosts other festivals and events throughout the year. The celebration turned into an annual event and this year we are celebrating the 174th Oktoberfest; the largest beer festival in the world. Oktoberfest has only been cancelled in times such as the first and second world wars and an estimated 6 million people visit it during the 2 weeks it lasts.
Here are some of the highlights on the information I’ve gathered:

• Even though it is called Oktoberfest, the festival always starts at the end of September, it lasts 2 weeks and it ends on the first Sunday in October. This year it will run from September 22nd through October 7th. The original celebration took place just in October but over the years it was moved to late September to try to have it during a slightly warmer time (I guess they figured however many more Celsius degrees of warmth they could get were worth moving the party to an earlier date without its name technically loosing validity).
• Each one of the 14 (I believe they are 14 but do not quote me on that) most important breweries in Bavaria set up a huge tent at the Theresienwiese with picnic style tables and benches where they sell of course beer along with traditional Bavarian food. The tents hold up anywhere between 5000 and 9000 eager beer drinkers and they are also set-up with stages for live performances of traditional Bavarian folk music.
  

Parenthesis:
Before visiting the Wiese I thought the tents were just plain old white tents with their white plastic curtains filled with tables and chairs. Just like the tents I got used to at the staging sites during the different FPL hurricanes/storm restorations of 2004 & 2005. Well, I was totally wrong. As you can see from the pictures the tents are much more elaborated than I could ever imagine; both on the outside and on the inside. On the outside they look like traditional Bavarian houses, with the white and blue checkered Bavarian flag (the colors come from the particular white and blue colors of the Bavarian sky) and with typical Bavarian symbols and images such as men and women wearing traditional clothes. And on the inside the tents have been all set up with wooden floors, nicely decorated ceilings and corridors, walls with paintings portraying typical Bavarian landscapes and images, plants, flags, you name it. Some of the tents even have a smaller seating section on a second floor.

Hofbrau Tent (entrance) ----Inside Hofbrau Tent

Augustiner Beer Tent ( look a the white and blue Bavarian sky )
Inside Augustiner Tent – about 2 or 3 tents were serving some beer and food

• In addition to tents, the park is filled with other amusement park type of attractions or rides for kids and adults such as roller coasters, ferry’s wheel, a haunted house, etc.
  The tents open sometime around 8 and 9 o’clock in the morning when they start selling breakfast. Beers is not served until 11 o’clock in the morning and the last call is around 11:30 P.M.

Attractions

• It is very hard to get a seat in one of the tents and they won’t serve you beer unless you are sitting down. The tables are reserved way in advanced (almost a year in advance) and your best bet, if you do not have a reservation, is to go early in the morning, especially during the week. I lucked out because my school has a reservation in one of the tents (I don’t remember which one right now but I’ll tell you all about it later on) for Saturday at 7PM. The reservation is for 40 people and from what I understand they reserved it all the way back in January.
• In the tents the regular beer is served by the liter (a Maβ Bier or Mass Bier in German, well actually in Bavarian dialect) and of course they have a premium price because it is Oktoberfest. Regularly, a maβ (1 liter) costs between 5 and 6 euros. During Oktoberfest the maβ costs between 8-10 euros.
  All the breweries prepare a special brew of white beer for the Oktoberfest which is only sold during this time of the year. The beer is produced in March and because it has been ready since then the alcohol content of the Oktoberfest beer is higher: 7%. On a regular basis the alcohol content of the beer is 5%. No wonder I hear that everyone at the Oktoberfest gets drunk, wasted, smashed, re-chucky, totally gone.
• The Oktoberfest will get kicked off at noon on Saturday (like it always does) by the Mayor of the city who is in charge of tapping the first barrel of beer (a 200 liter barrel) with a hammer. He has to tap the barrel as many times as necessary to get the beer to come out of and then be able to serve the first maβ of beer. Apparently this is a very important deliverable and quite a stressful task for everyone serving term as the Mayor of Munich. All of the press is there to watch him tap the barrel and serve the first liter of beer from the Oktoberfest. If the mayor takes more than 3 tries to break the barrel it won’t look good; and therefore he goes to a special “barrel-tapping” camp to train for this very important day. The one mayor who took the most tries broke it at the 9th tap (pretty embarrassing) and the record is 2.5 (2 hard ones and a soft one). Once the first maβ is served the Mayor hands it over to the Bavarian Minister President (the Governor of the state of Bavaria) and the party gets started.

I hope you enjoyed all the history and trivia behind the Oktoberfest; especially my friends who love beer and I know would love to be here one day to be part of the celebration. I promise to drink a beer in your name!!!!!

But before I conclude this post there is something else I wanted to share. As you know, Germans are all about efficiency and good planning. They think of everything; and I guess that in thinking of everything that the beer consumer at the Oktoberfest may need they came up with what I ran into during my tour of the Wiese: something that only the Germans could think of and that left me quite speechless. I have no words to describe it. A first-aid vending machine where you can insert a couple of euros and obtain everything from band-aids and antiseptic clothes to tablets for throat and stomach aids as well as an alcohol and drug test. Pretty clever no??? But I want you to also pay attention to number 14 (Can you guess what it is)????

First-Aid Vending Machine

Answer: A pregnancy test. (!?!?!?!?!?!?)