Oktoberfest Day One: Into the Beast...

Well I’ve said it before but these are bloody big beer. Each mug is a litre or about the equivalent of 3 bottles of beer. We got to the fair grounds or ‘weisen’ at about 1pm after taking a walk through the old city of Munich. Note to future comers to Oktoberfest that you need to be in the beer tents by 11am if you want a seat and the easiest way to get a seat is to ask a server to find you one. If there are only a couple of you (as it was with Forrest and myself) its possible to find something but in the most popular pavilions, its almost impossible.

Beer one went down range pretty easily and we were off to the races. We decided to have a beer and move on to the next tent. For the most part we stayed outside where there were more seats but somewhat exposed to the elements. One of the first things you notice is that the majority of the patrons are Germans, local Bavarians actually. The ‘fest’ is really a family affair and its common to see babies and grand parents at the same table. We also noticed that the drinking age is somewhat less restrictive. Kids can legally drink beer at 16 and hard alcohol at 18. You’d think that this would lead to some out of control kids but every table we saw, the kids were polite, well behaved and certainly enjoying themselves. The only people we saw drinking to excess (besides ourselves) were American 20-somethings.

We managed to drink 5.5 litres of beer on day one, stumble (and I mean stumble) back to the hotel for some much needed sleep and recovery. And Forrest, thanks for bringing the Tums!

See the full image gallery here on my Flikr page.

~chris