The Oktoberfest also known as the German Beer Festival is the largest festival of the world with a lot of beer consumption but Why and How is Oktoberfest Celebrated?
On October 12, 1810, the Crown Prince Ludwig was married to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen. To celebrate the royal event the citizens of Munich were invited in front of the city gates. The fields where the royal event took place was renamed to Theresienwiese which means Therese’s fields.
Horse races took place at the end of the event in the presence of the Royal Family. The decision that the Horse Races will be repeated the next year gave birth to Oktoberfest.
Here we have discussed all the information about the way
Why and How is Oktoberfest celebrated?
The Change of Oktoberfest Celebration
In 1811, an Agricultural show was added with the Horse race to promote the Bavarian Agriculture. Horse racing which was one of the most entertaining sports at that time is no longer held in the Oktoberfest. The Agricultural show is still held once in every three years.
The choice of entertainment was pretty less in the first few decades whichled to the set up of The first carousel and swing sets in the year 1818. Beer stalls were set up for the visitors to quench their thirst. The Beer stalls grew exponentially over the years. In 1896, the whole Oktoberfest was commercialized by enterprising landlords and breweries were in full support of these landlords. The beer stalls were removed and Tents and Halls were set up and the demand for Beer was sky rocketing.
Beer in Oktoberfest
The criteria of serving beer in Oktoberfest is quite strict. The beers conforming to Reinheitsgebot and brewed in the city limits of Munich can be served in the Oktoberfest.
In the German Beer Festival, the breweries allowed to serve beer are as follows:
Augustiner-Bräu
Hacker-Pschorr-Bräu
Löwenbräu
Paulaner
Spatenbräu
Staatliches Hofbräu-München
Oktoberfest is a registered trademark by the Club of Munich Brewers. This club consists of the above-mentioned brewers.
Beer Barrel Tapping
At 12 o’clock in the noon the Lord Mayor opens the first beer barrel in the Schottenhammel tent and with the exclamation O’zapft is! which means It’s Tapped, the Munich Beer Festival is declared open. According to the tradition, The first litre of the beer is first served to the Minister-President and then it is served to the visitors.
A series of 12 gunshots are fired to notify the other tents that the first barrel is tapped and they can start serving the beer. Later in other tents, the first barrel is tapped and the beer is served to the Visitors. Every year, the visitors eagerly wait to see how many strokes it would take for the mayor to own the barrel so much so that bets are made on this event. The best performance is two strokes while there is a record of 19 strokes by Thomas Wimmer in 1950.
Beer Corpses
The Munich Beer Festival is the worlds biggest Beer Festival which lasts for 16 days. People pass out from having a lot of beer and it is bound to happen because the festival is 17 days long. The locals call them “Bierleichen” which means Beer Corpses and every year there are a lot of them laying around.
Even though it is worlds biggest Beer Festival, It didn’t include beer when the festival started. Every year, 7.5 million litres of Beer is consumed in the Munich Beer Festival. The beer was included in the festival after years of serving it outside the festival.
The Grand Parade
The opening day of the festival starts with a huge Parade which consists of carriages, floats, and people in different costumes making their way through the streets of Munich. The Rifleman’s procession takes place on the first Sunday and a week later the Big Band Concert takes place.
Though Oktoberfest is the biggest Beer Festival in the world, It is not just about the beer, it is all about love. The reason behind this festival was a marriage and the core of this festival is still love. Gingerbread cookies and the icing makes the Oktoberfest very sweet. You can’t only eat them you can also wear them with a ribbon with sweetheart written on it. This makes this festival complete and sweet.
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