Besides Beer, What’s at Oktoberfest?

Beer is obviously the highlight of Oktoberfest and most tourists think that’s the only cool thing going on. How wrong they are!

The grounds of the Theresienwiese where Oktoberfest is held, is divided into two major parts: The Beer Tents and the Amusement rides.I’m not sure who had the brilliant idea to combine an amusement park with beer in large quantities. But, this side of Oktoberfest should not be missed.

Oktoberfest Rides

My son convinced me to spend an afternoon enjoying some of the rides at Oktoberfest before I started drinking. We did a log ride and a small roller coaster and both of those went fairly well. Then he convinced me to ride the swings. The Swings are very, very high. It starts out slowly, as the rides are lifted high into the Bavarian sky. Then the spinning begins.

Swings

The first two revolutions were beautiful – slow and very scenic. From here, you can see all of Munich, the entire grounds of Oktoberfest, and all the way to the Alps. Then, the spinning heats up. Before I knew it, I was stifling a scream. As we spun wildly through the sky, all I could thing of was how thin the four little chains are holding us up in the sky – combined with the gross weight of Spenser and me at about 400-450 pounds. I was eyeing up the Augustiner Tent, think  that if the chain snaps, maybe I’ll be projected onto one of the tents. That might be survivable! Spenser laughed at me the entire time, but it really was a scary experience.

Oktoberfest Ferris Wheel

The Ferris Wheel, “Riesenrad” is another favorite at the Wies’n. These large cabins revolve slowly and offer a specatular view of the Oktoberfest grounds, the city of Munich, and the Alps. This ride is even doable after a few liters of beer, assuming one isn’t afraid of heights. A few years ago, the police discovered an Italian film company shooting a porno film inside one of the cabins of the Ferris Wheel – somethings are still verboten!

Auf Geht's beim Schichtl

Not all the attractions are amusement rides. One of the older traditions is the show at “Auf Geht’s beim Schichtl” Since 1869, Schichtl has thrilled the crowd with an extremely believable beheading! The barker calls out to the crowd continually and tries to convince the crowd to buy a ticket and see the show inside. Although it’s all done in German, you won’t need a speck of laguage ability to understand the goings on (or off, in this case!)

Der Toboggan

Der Toboggan has been a favorite for more than 70 years! This is a fun one to watch in the later hours of the evening. The riders buy a ticket and ride up on a regular conveyor belt – this leads to lots of hilarity as most everyone has trouble holding their balance.  The slide itself is all wood and surprisingly quick.

Oldest Ride at Oktoberfest

“Die Krinoline” is the oldest ride at Munich’s Oktoberfest. It’s basically just a carousel. It rotates around a center axis relatively slowly, but it also tips up an down, like a spinning top. The real attraction, however, is the LIVE oom-pah band that is stationed at one end of the ride. Walk on, pick out a car and enjoy the music – one of the workers hops from car to car to collect the fare – that’s also fun to watch!

The Devil's Wheel

The Devil’s Wheel, or “Das Teufelsrad” is always fun. It’ s basically a big plate that spins around – sometime people just sit on hit, sometimes they walk or run on it, or sometimes there’s even a boxing match on it. 2008 marked it’s 100th anniversary of operation at Munich’s Oktoberfest!

There are bunches of other rides that will spin, flip, drop, and thrill you in all sorts of ways. There’s the Wall of Death, The Power Tower, Olympia Looping Roller Coaster, Night Fly, The Munich Slide, Haunted Castle, FreeFall, the Alpina Bahn, and countless others.

Since I’m not big on getting jostled around, particularly when beer drinking is involved, I’ve developed a few of my own favorites over the years. After my years of dedicated research, I’ve come across the best ride at Oktoberfest: The Weissbier Carousel. It moves at geriatric pace and a nice man in the middle serves Weissbier. It’s the antithesis of an action ride. Relax and enjoy!

Irrgarten at Oktoberfest

Another  fun activity after a few drinks is to go into the House of Fun – the “Irrgarten” You walk through a maze and have to use conveyor belts and deal with off-kilter walking walking surfaces. I remember (vaguely) having a lot of trouble in the area of the maze that simply had walls of clear glass. At one point, the girls need to beware of the air blow that sends their skirts up over their head. If your into that, there’s lots of video of it on You Tube

Cafe Kaiserschmarrn

A few of my other favorite things is stopping for coffee and Kaiserschmarrn at Cafe Kaiserschmarrn. In the window on the far right you can watch the Kaiserschmarrn prepared fresh right in front of you. Meanwhile, the have lots of coffee varieties to help pick you up if you’re short on sleep.

There are a lot of other must things to do. The absolute first thing I do when I arrive on the grounds is buy a Gingerbread Heart for my wife. There are tons of stands selling these hearts with cute little sayings on them.  Next, we buy some roasted nuts – lots of different flavors.

Gingerbread hearts

At the end of the night I typically stop and buy a giant bratwurst with mustard and Semmel – a small roll. On the way out, the last thing is to purchase a huge dill pickle. The vendor has big wooden barrels filled with pickels soaked in various brines.

During our time on the grounds, we enjoy the many shooting galleries, the food stands filled with various sausages, desserts, roasted chicken and duck, nuts, candies, souvenirs, and gingerbread hearts. There are even some specialty vendors like the fellow who sells a bird whistle – it’s actually fun to stand and listen to Vogel Jakob perform in his little stand.

Oktoberfest is full of small things to be discovered and enjoyed. Even if you aren’t a beer drinker, you’ll find plenty to enjoy!

Friends on the Weissbier Carousel

Oktoberfest Rides

Swings

Oktoberfest Ferris Wheel

Auf Geht’s beim Schichtl

Der Toboggan

Oldest Ride at Oktoberfest

The Devil’s Wheel

Irrgarten at Oktoberfest

Cafe Kaiserschmarrn

Gingerbread hearts

Shooting Competition in the tent

The Birdman

Carousel

Beer Wagen

Roasted Chicken

Friends on the Weissbier Carousel

Favorite Oktoberfest Tents

What is your favorite tent at Oktoberfest?

Many dream of visiting Oktoberfest. However, a lot of folks don’t understand the deal. There’s lot of information about the history, but here’s some practical information to help you wrap your mind around what goes on there.

Most on this side of the pond picture some kind of “Beer Fest” event with just drinking to excess. That’s really not it. Or, if that’s your experience, you’ve missed the point.

The grounds are divided into two main sections – one side is all of the carnival-like attractions. The other side are all the various beer tents. However, these “tents” hold some 10,000 people inside. There are 14 main tents: Hippodrom, Armbrustschützenzelt, Hofbräu Festzelt, Hacker-Festzelt, Schottenhamel, Winzerer Fähnd’l, Schützen-Festzelt Käfer’s Wies’n Schänke, Weinzelt, Löwenbräu-Festhalle, Bräurosl, Augustiner-Festhalle, Ochsenbraterei, Fischer-Vroni.

Once you are in a tent, what goes on there? The atmosphere varies depending on the time of day.When you have reservations, you can either get a lunch reservation (hours vary slightly in each tent) or an evening reservation.

Midday in the Tent

The tents are required to dial it down during midday. If you are in the tent then, you will hear live “Blasmusik” – Oom-pah style. This is a great time to sit at a table with a bunch of other folks and have a conversation, enjoy the great beer and food, and sway to the music. My favorite tents during the afternoon are the Augustiner and the Ochsenbraterei. Augustiner is the best beer in Munich and I’ve always had great friendly servers here (especially in Box 3!) . I like the Ochsenbraterei (Ox tent, for short) for the food. They roast a whole steer on a giant spit and you can order various parts of him – it’s really awesome with a liter of Spaten to wash it down. Last year, we sat in the balcony and we had two male waiters who were extremely friendly and efficient – that took great care of us during our afternoon there. All in all, the atmosphere is much less hectic and the servers have more time to take care of you.

Evenings in the Tent

In the evening, things change considerably. To me, it’s like a play – every hour is another act.

ACT I

Scene I – Sitting down

Most evening reservations start around 4:00 PM.

Clean-up for Evening guests

For the evening reservations, everyone arrives within a 15 minute window, so things are hectic, to say the least. When I have reserved seats, I spend the first 30 minutes “protecting my seats” – people without reservations see an empty space and I have to chase them away.  I have to enlist the help of my guests to keep telling passersby, “No!” Some people insist on sitting at our tables and I have to sometimes get the waitresses to help me chase the intruders away. Since I can only hold the seats open for a 15 minute grace period, it’s important for my guests to be on time!

Scene II – First Beer

First beer in Augustiner

As people are sitting down, the waitresses are rushing to get everyone their first round. When they get to your table, all they really want to hear is how many beers your table wants. For everything else, you need to wait. When she gets back with the beer, you have to pay up fast – if you have a coupon, you have give her that plus a euro for service. After the beer is doled out, she will consider taking orders for other beverages like Radler or Soda.

Scene III – Food

Brathendl - Roasted Chicken

The next phase after that is to order food. I recommend that people eat early – later you will find it’s hard to eat when people are dancing on the table! The first order she takes is for the Brathendl – chicken. That’s most every tent’s default selection and it’s always very good. Again, when she gets to the table, you need to tell her how many chickens – don’t try to oder anything else! After the chicken is delivered to her section, she’ll consider taking orders for 0ther food items from the menu.

Act II

Prosit!

After the plates are cleared, there’s another big push to refill everyone’s beer. On the stage, the music is starting to get really fun. The tempo is more rock and roll with a lot of bass to give everyone the beat. The songs are of the sing-a-long variety – there’s a ton of tune you know. Everyone is starting to get loosened up and you’ll start to see folks grab arms, swaying to the music together and singing – it really is irresistible! There’s lots of “prositing” – saying cheers with a hefty clink while looking everyone in the eye!  As this act plays out, people will start to climb up on to the benches and start dancing in place – it actually not allowed to get on top of the tables – try it and you’ll meet the security staff!

Act III – Getting Stupid

Girls Go Wild

It happens every time. Whenever beer is served, people drink too much and things start to get silly. The worm turns between 8:30 and 9:00 PM. If you don’t like being in the mosh pit, it is now time for you to look for the exit. This is when people start sloshing their beer around and falling on tables. Since some of our guests have left by now, we are obligated to give up any free seats we may have. If you’ve paced yourself, you can still have a lot of fun, but you need to be careful!

So, what’s the best tent in evening?  I usually take my groups to the Hofbrau Tent – it’s known as the foreigners tent and the music is really great – it’s really a party tent. But, truthfully, most of the tents are all rocking at this point and there isn’t much difference.

I’ve had a great time in all the tents and they are all worth a look. I like the decor of the Hacker Tent and it’s fun to watching the shooting competition in the Schuetzen Festzelt. Beer, guns, and roller coasters – what a great time!

Things I’ve learned the hard way:

1. Never bring your passport to Oktoberfest

2. Don’t bring more money than you need for one night

3. Don’t let your wife go to the bathroom by herself

4. Go on the roller coasters BEFORE you visit the tents

5. It’s a marathon, not a sprint

6. Respect your server, tip her well, and don’t make her angry

7. At night, just order the damn chicken

8. Try the Radler

9. If you hear a whistle, stop what you are doing immediately!

10. Don’t stay to the bitter end!

Scott at the Wies'n

Oktoberfest Beer Price announced

Every year the hot topic in Munich is, “How much will the beer at Oktoberfest cost?” According to reliable, but unofficial, information we’re looking at 8,70 Euros – about 5% higher that 2008.

It’s surprising given the terrible economy, but it’s doubtful that a 5% price hike will keep anyone away from the Wies’n!

On the other hand, if you think about all the overhead that beer supports, it’s not so bad. Oktoberfest is not a small thing and it’s done right. The “tents” are decorated beautifully, the bands are excellent, and the servers are all working hard. So, you get a beer for about 10 Euros, including tip, so it costs you about 14-15 dollars for a liter. In most US bars you pay all of that for the equivalent 3 12-ounce bottles of Bud. So, you get a high quality beer in a solid glass made for “prosting” – just shut up and drink your beer!