Oktoberfest for Beginners

When: 21st Sept - 7th Oct 2019

When we went: 21st Sept - 24th Sept (opening weekend 2018)

Where: Munich, Germany

Getting there: We flew into Stuttgart from London and caught a train on to Munich as the flights were a lot cheaper.

What to wear:

Guys—Traditional lederhosen is a must. They are pretty expensive but you can pick up some good secondhand ones online. The shirt changes every year depending on the “fashion.” Last year was plain coloured or white shirts (clearly we got the memo late), and the year before was gingham. It doesn’t really matter too much as long as you have a proper leather lederhosen on.

Girls—Invest in a good Dirndl (not one from amazon) as you can definitely tell the ones that bought theirs cheap, and not that it really matters but locals definitely throw their nose up at those who have skirts above the knees. Also, this is their culture, so respect it! You can pick up a good secondhand one online for £30-£40 and brand new can range anywhere from €60-€200 depending on style, embroidery, and embellishment. Same goes with the girls and there is usually a trend for the year, but it doesn’t matter so much. You also need to wear a traditional dirndl blouse underneath (usually white) and can have large sleeves or a corset style front.

DAY ONE—OPENING WEEKEND

We arrived at the gates after grabbing a bite to eat at the station, thinking we were early, at around 7.30 AM… Oh how we were wrong. Lines were INSANE.

We lined up for what felt like forever, and we didn’t exactly come prepared. Everyone around us had drinks and food to tide them over. Clearly they knew what they were doing. Gates opened at 9 AM and everyone rushed in. It’s completely free to get into the Oktoberfest grounds and the beer halls. We had our map in hand and knew exactly what tent we wanted to go to—First Hofbrau, then whatever was free after that. Hofbrau was absolute jam packed at 9:10 AM, so we had to find somewhere else to go and ended up at the Paulaner tent.

NO TABLE OR SEAT = NO BEER

The tables filled up pretty quick in the next tent, but we managed to find a table that had two awesome American guys on it, so we sat with them. The key to the halls is that you have to find a table, otherwise the beer maids won’t serve you any steins. Once you’re seated, you have to wait for the first beer keg to be tapped by the mayor, and this doesn’t happen until 12 noon (this only happens on the first day of opening weekend as a celebration of the start of Oktoberfest). We were served our first beers at around 1:30 PM once they served the people around us.

ANOTHER TIP (PUN INTENDED):

Tip your beer maid and tip her straight away. The general rule is that if you tip them early on, then they will continue to provide you with beer all day. No tips = no beer. Beers and raddlers (beer mixed with lemonade) were €11.50 and we ended up giving our girl around €25 for two beers (a tip of €1 per beer) and she kept the beer coming all day long. Plus, these women are seriously talented and strong—they can carry 10-12 steins in their arms in one go… no tray, just pure arm strength! That’s 10-12 litres of beer, plus the weight of the glass steins.

TOO HARD TOO FAST

The boys went a little too hard on the first day and managed to down eight steins (yes that’s eight litres of beer) in just under four hours. Safe to say it was an early first night.

Definitely try to eat a good breakfast and lunch before you drink and buy PLENTY of pretzels from the people walking around. They are stacked with salt and help with the hangover. They were roughly €5 each. WORTH IT!

DAY TWO

Day two was a little better with getting a good spot in the Hofbrau tent—considered to be the fun tent with loads of live music, tonnes of beer skulling, and singing from everyone inside, there’s honestly nothing quite like it. It’s such a good atmosphere. We lined up from 7 AM and ran to Hofbrau as fast as we could to secure our table. Boys were feeling a little worse for wear, so we all took it a little slower.

RIDES

There are so many amazing rides outside the tents that you can go on (maybe not if you’re smashed). Oktoberfest has been given the nickname “Disneyland for adults” for a reason.

They can get pretty expensive so make sure you work out which ones you want to go on before you run out of cash. Müchen Looping is our all time favourite so you have to give it a go. With a total of five loop-the-loops it’s bound to make you either wee your pants with laughter or scare you shitless.

WHAT IF I DON’T DRINK BEER?

Why are you at a beer festival? Just kidding. Plenty of people don’t like beer, so you can buy a radler (half beer half lemonade) so that you can still join in on the fun without the strong beer taste. Otherwise, you can leave the tent and drink wine and spirits from specialised sellers in the festival area. You do run the risk of not being able to get back into your tent though if it’s at capacity, especially if you were in one of the larger, more popular tents. Definitely worth it though to be able to have a wine or vodka in the sunshine and take a break from the craziness of the beer halls.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Overall one of the coolest drinking experiences you will come across. Even if you don’t drink, the whole festival is something to experience in itself. You see a bucket load of extremely drunk people in the middle of the day, quite a few ambulances taking people away, and there's a tonne of super fun rides to jump on. Would go back in a heartbeat!

N & G

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