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It’s day 7 of the official Oktoberfest in Munich, the world’s largest beer party!
At Oktoberfest, the beer is supplied by breweries known as the Big Six: Spaten, Löwenbräu, Augustiner, Hofbräu, Paulaner and Hacker-Pschorr. Each brewery has its own tent, holding thousands of festival-goers. The price of beer varies from tent to tent, but ranges between 7.80 and 8.30 Euros per liter – or about $12 US.
Estimates are that 6.2 million visitors will consume a mind-boggling 6,940,600 litres of beer. Do the math. That’s about $84 million US on beer alone – …read more

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In Germany, even the politicians get into the act during Oktoberfest. The official Oktoberfest celebration is held in Munich, Germany, located in Bavaria. Here, Bavaria’s state governor Guenther Beckstein attends the BILD Wiesn event at Hippodrom beer tent September 25, 2008. You can read more about what’s going on at the Hippodrom here.

What’s in a number? 220,000 is the number of beer mugs that were stolen and recovered at the official Oktoberfest last year. Almost a quarter of a million? Insanity. Makes you wonder how many were simply stolen…
For more on Oktoberfest, check out our prior post.

This is a great video by BBC News on the Munich Oktoberfest…  A little history combined with some modern footage.  The embed has been disabled but you can still view it by going here.

Ever wonder what goes on at Oktoberfest? Check out this video – sound and picture quality aren’t all that great since it’s clearly shot inside – but it offers a nice peek (and you can hear Ein Prosit in the background):

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Oktoberfest is officially open!
The world’s largest wedding part was first held in Munich, on October 12, 1810 to celebrate the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen.
The festival begins each year in mid-September (this year, September 20) and runs 16 days. It’s held on an area named the Theresienwiese (field, or meadow, of Therese), and often called d’ Wiesn for short.
For the last fifty years, the festival has been opened by a twelve gun salute and the tapping of the first keg of Oktoberfest beer at 12:00 by …read more

Since yesterday’s post was about the beers of March, French style, I had to follow it up with the famous Märzenbier, German for March beer. Brewed in March, these beers are associated more with fall and the Oktoberfest, which is when these beers would be tapped. To learn more about this style, check out this article in All About Beer.

I’ve written on beer and children a few times, and for good reason. When we had our first child many people told us (and, despite our statements to the contrary, we feared) that our days of pleasant afternoons at a nice brewpub were over. Not true, at least not entirely.
As I sit here today we await with some anticipation our first pilgrimage to the Stoudt’s brewery for 2007. For those who don’t know, Stoudt’s is a long-established Pennsylvania microbrewery with an “Oktoberfest” in its rather large beer hall every Sunday in October, complete with music, roast pig, and, of course, …read more

So, the Oktoberfest has been over for a little while now, and although I’ve been writing about it long past its time, I thought a postscript was in order. For those who are interested in these sorts of things, Oktoberfest.de had the following facts to offer about the 2007 Oktoberfest:
After 16 days of beer, fun and Gemutlichkeit, the Oktoberfest has closed its gates. 6.2 million people visited the biggest fair in the world and approximately 6.7 million “Maß” beer, thousands of “Hendl” and 104 oxen were consumed.
If you don’t know, a Maß is one liter, so that’s 1.8 million gallons …read more

I know you can cook with beer, although my idea of cooking with beer is throwing half a bottle of lager into a crock pot with Kielbasa and sauerkraut on a cold winter’s day. For those of you with more ambition for cooking than I can usually muster, the following recipe sounds pretty tasty:
Beer and Cheese Soup
5 T butter
2 carrots, finely chopped
2 leeks, white and light green parts only, finely chopped
salt and pepper
1/3 c flour
3 c milk
1 12 oz. bottle amber beer
1-1/2 T dijon mustard
10 oz sharp cheddar cheese, grated
croutons, for garnish
1. In a large saucepan, melt the butter …read more