If you Brew it, they will Come

With less than one month to go before the annual Octoberfest celebration in Munich, the tents are already in full swing at Theriesenwiese (as you can see from the Spatenbrau tent being built), the fairgrounds that host the Octoberfest celebration every year. There are more than a dozen of these tents and each one accommodates approx 5000 revelers. That’s not to mention the hundreds of rides and eating joints. I have only been in the tents once before, and the thing that struck me (aside from the massive beers, the buffed waitresses, and the continuous songs of “New York, New York” and the Chicken Dance; is that everyone is in a festive mood. With so many people, in such close proximity, with so much beer – this is amazing. And for those hoping for a just a pinch of history, the story goes like this. The first October fest was a celebration of Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildberghausen in 1810. The celebration became official in 1819, and since then they’ve moved the dates forward to take advantage of good weather in September, and also to celebrate the coming harvest which traditionally began in October. Despite its name, the celebration generally ends the first week of October.