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The Oktoberfest Survival Guide

Oktoberfest kicked off on September 17th in Munich, Germany. Unlike last year, I won’t be in attendance this time around. But in case you will be (or will be attending one of America’s faux celebrations), I want you all  to be prepared with my professional tips.

1) Be prepared for the ride

If you’re traveling to Munich via train, you might find yourself in a car with 10 men from the same “village” who have multiple kegs, loud music and an underage 15-year-old.  They will all be offended if you don’t drink beer and/or take shots with them, so just do it. Don’t plan on resting up during this voyage.

2) Eat whatever everyone else is eating

Look around. What are the old men and the bavarians in leiderhosen eating? Order that, no matter how good everything else sounds. If you can’t figure out the German menu, ask for an English version. They have them.

3) Order a pretzel the size of your head

You will not find anything like this in America no matter how hard you try. Plus, you’re going to need some carbs to aid with the 10 liters of beer you will inevitably drink.

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ES Must Do: Munich Oktoberfest

MLOfest

Remember when I swooned over the 24 oz beer I got at a concert?

Forget it.

Far, far away from Scranton, Pennsylvania is a place called Munich, Germany (München, in German). They hold Oktoberfest during the last two weeks of September. But you know this already.

I was in attendance at the Spaten (ochsenbraterei) tent. No, we didn’t tent hop, but that story is for another day. Now, they only serve one type of beer in each tent (that brewery’s beer, obviously), along with alcohol free beer, and the lemonade-beer mix (shandy) for people who are too drunk to drink more beer. Or, at least that’s why I had to have one. The beer was absolutely delicious. It TASTED like beer (not the American water we call beer) and went down very, very easily. It was also brewed stronger for Oktoberfest, so it was about 6% abv. Not terribly strong, but enough to knock you on your ass after a few liters.

A beer stein (pictured above) holds one liter of beer. For those of us not in metric mode, that’s nearly 34 ounces for 8,75 Euro, or about $12 plus tip. 7 million liters of beer were served (who knows if they were all consumed).What’s better than that? Food.

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