Oktoberfest: Time to take note?

Adam writes​: People have a lot of clichéd, pre-conceived ideas about the Oktoberfest in Munich - I know I did. I had images in my mind of steins, oompah bands and lederhosen.

And the strange thing was, going to the festival did nothing to dispel those notions. But that was fine - Oktoberfest is about tradition and the six-and-a-half million people who visit each year completely embrace it.

Obviously, at the heart of this huge festival of food, drink and funfairs is the beer - and what beer it is. There are six Munich brewers traditionally allowed to serve their beers at the Oktoberfest and that hasn't changed since the inception of the festival in 1810. The brewers are Hacker-Pschorr, Hofbräu, Paulaner, Augustiner, Löwenbräu and Spaten.

The organisers of the festival are emphatic that no other brewer can join this illustrious group. In the 1980s, well-known Munich brewer Kaltenberg tried to join the party. Rather than simply snub Kaltenberg, a brand new law was introduced to ensure no one but those six could ever be there.

They all brew special beers for the festival, which tend to be at least 1.5 per cent ABV higher than their regular brews. Such behaviour in the UK would whip the tabloids into quite a frenzy. 'Super-strength stupour!', they might exclaim.

But Oktoberfest does not hit those sorry heights. There are a few people around who are far too worse for wear, but for the vast majority it is just a roaring good time. People come together to eat well and drink better, sampling the best brews Munich's oldest breweries have to offer.

More than anything, Oktoberfest demonstrates just how far apart the two great brewing nations of Germany and Britain have drifted. Here, we are constantly looking to modernise and move the national drink away from the past. Beer is getting colder, more golden and sexed up by marketers. At the nation's biggest celebration of beer, the Great British Beer Festival (GBBF), one senses tension between those who want to modernise and those who would rather appeal to the past.

At Oktoberfest the only concern is making sure there's enough beer and then discussing how bloody good it is, while being extremely well fed at the same time.

So how can the Germans put on such a successful beer-fuelled festival - the very idea of which would send the Alcohol Health Alliance scurrying for the hills?

Well, they just seem much more willing to embrace their heritage than the English are (I would exclude the Scottish, Welsh and Irish from this). And this impacts on traditional industries like brewing.

Why else do we see millions of Germans coming to a festival to celebrate and join in enthusiastically with the lederhosen-clad oompah bands, whereas mere thousands attend the GBBF, many of whom stare in mild embarrassment at the Morris dancers and folk bands? This is not a dig at GBBF organisers the Campaign for Real Ale, because for all those who say we need to modernise the festival, just ponder on the fact that Oktoberfest is hardly a beacon of modernity.

The standards of beer and food quality are outstandingly high - but otherwise it is a celebration of Munich and (here's an old-fashioned thought) men and women coming together to socialise and celebrate with beer and food. It's a pretty sound concept as far as I'm concerned. Prost!

John writes:​ To echo Adam, one clear observation we brought away from Oktoberfest was that you definitely wouldn't get away with it here. The very idea of a major city turning itself over to a celebration of eating and drinking would have our ever-watchful all-is-bad-for-you lobby spluttering over their herbal tea.

But a celebration is just what it was. Waitresses dressed in dirndls - the traditional Bavarian dress - laden with heavy handfuls of beer glasses and plates of food skirt around massive beer halls. Chickens, fish, sausages and even whole oxen are spit roasted and churned out to hungry visitors by the metric tonne.

This is a very German festival, with most of the visitors coming from Germany itself and one suspects many of the Americans, Australians and Canadians who attend also have a touch of Bavarian ancestry.

But that isn't to say that our own pubs couldn't learn some lessons. Running an Oktoberfest-themed night with authentic German beer and food is one way, or why not adapt the principles to your regular fare? There are plenty of pubs which support local brewers and food producers. Throw in a folk band or morris dancing troupe and you've got an English culture festival.

Courtesy of our host CMA, which markets German food and drink abroad, we were also privileged to enjoy a seven-course beer and food matching evening. Hosted by Andrew Jesina, with food cooked by Konrad Wolfmiller, it was a lesson in how we should be approaching this over here.

Rather than attempt to adopt the vocabulary and smoke-and-mirrors approach used by wine buffs, Andrew was a genuine beer enthusiast with robust opinions on what worked and why. He also kindly allowed Adam and I to expound our views of UK pubs, food and beer well into the night. A genuine cultural exchange.