{"id":10093,"date":"2026-09-21T19:14:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T01:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/?p=10093"},"modified":"2026-09-21T19:16:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T01:16:59","slug":"let-the-oktoberfests-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/golf\/lifestyle\/10093\/let-the-oktoberfests-begin","title":{"rendered":"Let the Oktoberfests Begin!"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n

At noon Saturday in Munich, Germany, the city\u2019s Mayor, Dominik Krause, (at right in photo below), took a mere two hits to open the keg, cry, \u201cO\u2019zapft is!\u201d (\u201cIt\u2019s been tapped!\u201d) and officially open Oktoberfest 2026, presenting the first beer to Bavarian Minister-President Markus S\u00f6der (left). (These photos by Michael Nagy, Presseamt M\u00fcnchen.)<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Of course, this followed a morning parade of brewers, brewery wagons, marching bands, waitresses\u2014some 1,000 marchers and 50 floats\u2014to the traditional Theresienwiese site for what is called the world\u2019s largest folk festival. But why take my word for it?; there are a variety of Oktoberfest webcams<\/a> that give eyewitness views of the doings (keeping in mind that Munich is six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time).<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written about Oktoberfest and its M\u00e4rzen beer style plenty of times here at the website, tombedell.golf; here\u2019s one representative example from ten years ago, \u201cBeery Odes to Autumn<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The quick review is that it all began in Munich in 1810 as a celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig I and Princess Therese. If called Oktoberfest, it takes place mostly in September, running for sixteen days until the first Sunday in October. The late beer writer Michael Jackson said everyone should go to Oktoberfest once, \u201cAnd once may be enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been to one wild German festival (a wine festival in name, but there was plenty of beer being served), but I\u2019ve yet to make it to the big one. Bucket list.<\/p>\n

This year is the 191st iteration of the annual beer and food orgy. At the 190th food sales were up (though roast chicken surprisingly outsells wursts) and a whopping 6.5 million liters of beer were consumed, or 13.7 million U.S. pints. Some 4,500 items wound up in the lost and found.<\/p>\n

Oktoberfest, the beer, is actually a style called M\u00e4rzen (or Vienna lager). In pre-refrigeration days of the mid-19th century Bavarian brewers began producing full-bodied, malty beers in March (M\u00e4rzen) and then lagering them in cool caves until it was time to celebrate Oktoberfest. The style has existed ever since, an amber to darkish beer of moderate strength. That\u2019s what you\u2019re liable to find here, though I\u2019ve heard that in Munich these days you\u2019re more likely to run into a somewhat lighter in color Fest Bier.<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

Anyway, the bready malt aromas combined with crisp hop finishes make these beers one of my favorite styles. I rounded up a few that are now on the local market, shown here, three from Vermont, one from California, one from Munich\u2014Paulaner, one of the six breweries allowed to serve at Oktoberfest (the others being Augustiner-Br\u00e4u, Hacker-Pschorr, L\u00f6wenbr\u00e4u, Spaten and Staatliches Hofbr\u00e4uhaus M\u00fcnchen).<\/p>\n

A couple of later entries were the Samuel Adams Octoberfest and another Vermont entry, the Whetstone Beer Co.\u2019s Leafen Peepen Oktoberfest. I didn\u2019t take any deep tasting notes with these. I just enjoyed them, as should you.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As it has done for many years now, Sierra Nevada\u2019s annual entry is a collaboration with a German brewery, this year with Hoppebr\u00e4u<\/a> in Waakirchen, about 50 km south of Munich. The collaboration comes complete with a video that sort of documents the endeavor<\/a>. In lieu of a trip to Bavaria, it will do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At noon Saturday in Munich, Germany, the city\u2019s Mayor, Dominik Krause, (at right in photo below), took a mere two… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":10097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[939,18],"tags":[3270,270248,1046068,629,667,720,3258,3257],"class_list":["post-10093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beer-on-tap","category-lifestyle","tag-marzen","tag-vienna-lager","tag-hoppebrau","tag-beer","tag-germany","tag-sierra-nevada","tag-oktoberfest","tag-munich"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/09\/unnamed-file-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10093"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10100,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10093\/revisions\/10100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/tombedell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}