REFLEKTOR / SPOTLIGHT
OKTOBERFEST The anatomy of the world’s biggest party
here to the Bavarian Beer Purity Law of 1487 (and subsequent Reinheitsgebot of 1516), according to which the beer must contain only water, barley and hops. This criterion is only met by six Munich brew- eries: Augustiner-Bräu, Hacker-Pschorr, Hofbräuhaus, Löwenbräu, Paulaner and Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu. Beer is special- ly brewed for this occasion, with so-called festival beer being slightly darker, rich- er in malt and noticeably stronger than
From horse racing and a royal wedding, to massive tents and urban legends about Einstein, Oktoberfest is much more than a beer festival. It is the oldest, loudest and most lucrative Bavarian brand, with foundations of strict engineering and culinary precision T he numbers are as- tonishing: each au- tumn, on a field in central Munich, over six million
standard beer, with an alcohol percentage of around six to 6.3 per cent. It is served exclusively in massive one-litre glass mugs, known as Maß. With rivers of alcohol flow- ing, the food on offer is heavy, greasy and calorific, designed to absorb hectolitres of beer. The absolute king of the festival isn’t the pretzel, but roast chicken. Chickens are roasted on giant rotating spits installed in tents and served as crispy skinned halves, accompanied by pota- to salad. The other star of the menu is pork knuckle, which
people consume about seven million litres of beer and half a million roast chickens, leaving behind in the city more than a billion euros in revenue. De- spite being called Oktobarfest, the festival actually mostly takes place in September (al- ways ending in the first week of October), enabling attend- ees to take advantage of the
longer and warmer autumn days. How- ever, what today seems like the pinna- cle of global mass tourism and unbridled beer drinking actually began more than two centuries ago as a very formal, aris- tocratic event. On 12 th October 1810, Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Lud- wig I) married Princess Therese. The cit- izens of Munich were invited to attend the celebration on the meadows located beyond the city gates. In honour of the bride, the field was renamed Therese’s Meadow, a name it still bears to this day, though locals simply call it die Wiesn. Interestingly, beer wasn’t the main fo- cus of the inaugural Oktoberfest at all. The central event was horse racing, and it was only a few years later that merry- go-rounds and, finally, small beer stalls were added. Those stalls transformed in- to the gigantic tents that we know today at the end of the 19 th century. Einstein and the first light Oktoberfest experienced a technolog- ical revolution at the end of the 19th cen- tury, which also gave birth to one of Mu-
nich’s most enduring urban legends. For the first time in history, the Schottenham- el marquee was to be lit by electricity, with the 1885 contract for this historic under- taking awarded to company Elektrotech- nische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, owned by Hermann and Jakob Einstein – the father and uncle of the famous Albert Einstein. Web portals and tourist guides today of- ten retell the anecdote of how a then sev- enteen-year-old Albert personally hung from the roof structure and screwed in the first light bulbs. However, history and mathematics dispel that myth: in 1885, Albert was just six years old, and by the time he turned 17, his family had already gone bankrupt and left Germany. Although the future Nobel laureate and creator of the theory of relativity didn’t personally perform physics on the scaffolding, it re- mains a fascinating fact that it was the Einstein family that turned on the first lights at the world’s biggest party. You can’t drink just any beer at Ok- tobarfest. The rules are incredibly strict. In order for beer to be served at the fes- tival, it must be brewed within the city limits of Munich and must strictly ad-
is roasted to the point at which the skin cracks under the teeth, while fish on a stick is traditionally eaten along the river. Local white fish (most often trout), is skewered on long wooden sticks and grilled over an open grill, with strong spices added. Of course, there are always the giant Bavarian pretzels, which are sold from wicker bas- kets carried between tables by waitresses. Secret Autumn Fair On the first weekend in October, when the tents on Therese’s Meadow are disman- tled and the tourists leave the city, Munich returns to itself. For external observers, the party is over, but for locals it has just changed form. In the third week of October (from 17 th to 25 th ), Auer Dult, or more pre- cisely its autumn version, known as Kirch- weichdult, takes place on the town square of Mariahilfplatz. Free of tourist chaos, Ba- varians come here to shop at Europe’s larg- est open-air market of tableware and ceram- ics. Alongside antiques and old books, the square is filled with nostalgic wooden mer- ry-go-rounds and stalls offering excellent street food – from hot chestnuts to fried doughnuts and artisanal sausages.
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