Oktoberfest… And why I really don’t like other band parents
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So we’re going down to a CNU game on September 30th. We’re going to be tailgating with other band parents (God help me). They evidently have themes for their tailgates. They were asking for suggestions for themes for the tailgate. I suggested Oktoberfest. The guy that runs the tailgate was confused… “But it’s September? And what does Oktoberfest have to do with tailgates?” :head slap:
So I explained to them that Oktoberfest normally ends on the first Sunday of October (though if the Sunday is October 1st or 2nd, they will extend for a couple of days) and the 30th was the last Saturday of the ‘fest, and if I needed to explain how beer and brats went with tailgating then I needed to find a different group to tailgate with… They still didn’t get it and I found myself having to teach them about the Festival. The history, the traditions, etc… It hit me how little people actually know about the festival…
The biggest myth, IMO, is that it’s a wedding anniversary celebration… This is only very partially true, and is extremely misleading…There was a wedding celebration for Prince Ludwig I and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen on October 12th in 1810 in Munich. The wedding was celebrated with a week long festival. The celebration did include a carousel as well as food and beer vendors and they did make it into an annual event, but attendance grew sparse over the years. The fact is that the weather is much worse in Mid-October in Munich and the days are quickly getting shorter. Plus, mid-October is an extremely busy time for a society that is still pre-industrial. AND, there was a much more fun and older tradition in mid-late September…
In 1400s , you did not brew beer between March and October. The primary reason was that beer brewed in the summer tasted like crap. It was too warm … It also didn’t hurt that in smaller villages, brewers were farmers themselves. From March till September they were farming. Typically they were harvesting summer barley in late August and planting winter barley in early September. Come mid-September they had a couple of weeks before they had to start brewing again, and often there were quite a few barrels that needed emptying to make room for the new beer that needed brewing. So they drank it. Every local village had their own little festival designed to finish off last year’s beer so they could started brewing the new year’s beer. It was a very popular couple of weeks in German villages…
Flash forward a few hundred years, you have a new “Oktoberfest” celebrating the marriage and then the anniversary of the Crown Prince and Princess. Hugely successful at first, but interest starts to wane. Again, mid-October isn’t a pleasant time, there’s work to do, the novelty of the Festival has worn off, and people are already overly partied out… You have upset vendors and an upset royal family. What’s the obvious answer? Move the celebration up a few weeks to coincide with the beer festivals that are already happening…
Today, the wedding in 1810 is the official first Oktoberfest, but in reality it goes back much further… Almost all of the traditions, the games, lederhosen (lederhosen was already out of style in 1810 and dates back to a prior era) date back to long before Oktoberfest was official. Many of the other traditions are far more recent. The mayor tapping the first keg, the special “festbiers”(started in the 1970’s), etc…
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So we’re going down to a CNU game on September 30th. We’re going to be tailgating with other band parents (God help me). They evidently have themes for their tailgates. They were asking for suggestions for themes for the tailgate. I suggested Oktoberfest. The guy that runs the tailgate was confused… “But it’s September? And what does Oktoberfest have to do with tailgates?” :head slap:
So I explained to them that Oktoberfest normally ends on the first Sunday of October (though if the Sunday is October 1st or 2nd, they will extend for a couple of days) and the 30th was the last Saturday of the ‘fest, and if I needed to explain how beer and brats went with tailgating then I needed to find a different group to tailgate with… They still didn’t get it and I found myself having to teach them about the Festival. The history, the traditions, etc… It hit me how little people actually know about the festival…
The biggest myth, IMO, is that it’s a wedding anniversary celebration… This is only very partially true, and is extremely misleading…There was a wedding celebration for Prince Ludwig I and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen on October 12th in 1810 in Munich. The wedding was celebrated with a week long festival. The celebration did include a carousel as well as food and beer vendors and they did make it into an annual event, but attendance grew sparse over the years. The fact is that the weather is much worse in Mid-October in Munich and the days are quickly getting shorter. Plus, mid-October is an extremely busy time for a society that is still pre-industrial. AND, there was a much more fun and older tradition in mid-late September…
In 1400s , you did not brew beer between March and October. The primary reason was that beer brewed in the summer tasted like crap. It was too warm … It also didn’t hurt that in smaller villages, brewers were farmers themselves. From March till September they were farming. Typically they were harvesting summer barley in late August and planting winter barley in early September. Come mid-September they had a couple of weeks before they had to start brewing again, and often there were quite a few barrels that needed emptying to make room for the new beer that needed brewing. So they drank it. Every local village had their own little festival designed to finish off last year’s beer so they could started brewing the new year’s beer. It was a very popular couple of weeks in German villages…
Flash forward a few hundred years, you have a new “Oktoberfest” celebrating the marriage and then the anniversary of the Crown Prince and Princess. Hugely successful at first, but interest starts to wane. Again, mid-October isn’t a pleasant time, there’s work to do, the novelty of the Festival has worn off, and people are already overly partied out… You have upset vendors and an upset royal family. What’s the obvious answer? Move the celebration up a few weeks to coincide with the beer festivals that are already happening…
Today, the wedding in 1810 is the official first Oktoberfest, but in reality it goes back much further… Almost all of the traditions, the games, lederhosen (lederhosen was already out of style in 1810 and dates back to a prior era) date back to long before Oktoberfest was official. Many of the other traditions are far more recent. The mayor tapping the first keg, the special “festbiers”(started in the 1970’s), etc…
Interesting. Thanks!!
I did not know much about it other than the pictures of the waitresses carrying lots and lots of beer glasses to a table. LOL
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Shit. They are now asking us to lead that tailgate. I’ve never even been to a tailgate…
The Brad
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I never thought much about the history but did know it’s mainly a September thing. Good info man! And wow, yes you might need to find new parent friends.
@89th said in Oktoberfest… And why I really don’t like other band:
I never thought much about the history but did know it’s mainly a September thing. Good info man!
Now let’s discuss why Octoberfest beers don’t look like the pictures and movies you see from Oktoberfest and the differences between modern Märzen, Festbier, Oktoberfest Bier, and Dunkel…
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Shit. They are now asking us to lead that tailgate. I’ve never even been to a tailgate…
@LuFins-Dad said in Oktoberfest… And why I really don’t like other band parents:
Shit. They are now asking us to lead that tailgate. I’ve never even been to a tailgate…
Beer, water, chips might be enough.
If you are ambitious you could grill burgers and dogs.
Better to get a couple party platters from the super market.
And of course a few nice desserts.
Go for easy clean up because everyone will bolt when the game starts, or earlier if the band starts playing.
