If you think that you must travel all the way to Munich to experience Oktoberfest, think again. There are many opportunities to get your “Oom-pah on” within a 3.5 hour drive of Charleston. Before I tell you where let’s look at a few facts about the Oktoberfest celebration.

The Oktoberfest is the name given to a now perennial celebration that was first held in October 1810 to celebrate the wedding of Prince Ludwig to Princess Therese. Traditional Bavarian food, Music and of course, beer make up the fabric of today’s celebration The Munich Oktoberfest was originally held in October but was eventually moved to mid-September to take advantage of more pleasant weather and takes place on a fairground area right inside the city.

The 2-week festival brings upwards of 6 million visitors and serves 15 Million liters of beer. Only breweries from Munich are allowed to sponsor Oktoberfest, and they do so by setting up extremely large tents which become “The” party places during the fest. A single tent will hold thousands of singing beer drinkers and busty waitresses carrying several liters of beer in a heavy glass stein called a mass. Tent reservations can be made, in keeping with the orderly German culture.

There are plenty of Oktoberfest celebrations taking place near us over the next several weeks extending from mid-September through October, in fact the world’s second largest Oktoberfest celebration is held in Cincinnati!

By the way, when I use the term Oktoberfest, I mean a celebration that serves BEER! I am sorry… You can’t have Oktoberfest without beer, so for all of you folks planning a “Beer-less” Oktoberfest, please just go with the name “Fall Festival” and spare me the embarrassment of showing up in my lederhosen with my mass in hand!

IF YOU GO:
Sep. 15: Charleston Oktoberfest, Appalachian Power Park
(www.theclaycenter.org/members/friends.aspx)

Sep. 22-23: Oktoberfest Zinzinnati, downtown Cincinnati
(http://www.oktoberfest-zinzinnati.com/)

Sep 21-23and Sep. 28-30: Penn Brewery Oktoberfest, Pittsburgh, Pa
(www.pennbrew.com)

Sep. 29-Oct. 1: German Village Oktoberfest – Columbus Ohio
(http://home.columbus.gov/events/events_84.asp)

Oct. 6: Bramwell Oktoberfest - Bramwell, WV
(http://www.geocities.com/bramwelloktoberfest)

Oct. 6: Pullman Square Oktoberfest – Huntington, WV
(http://www.pullman-square.com/events.php)

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 11:12 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.