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Monday, September 21, 2009 - 5:29 PM
Oktoberfest officially began this past weekend. Since I couldn’t make it to Munich I decided to make the trip to Addison, Texas where they proclaim to have one of the most authentic Oktoberfest traditions outside of Germany. We made the road trip from Houston to the Dallas area with the purpose to experience great German Beer and food. Luckily, we found both, along with the company of great friends both old and new. We found our home in the giant tented Beer Garden, where picnic style tables lined the premises. We found our seats and begin drinking plentiful amounts of Spaten Oktoberfest beer. The Spaten Oktoberfest is dark amber in color, medium bodied, and very drinkable. Spaten claims to have made the very first Oktoberfest beer in 1872. The Spaten brewery itself traces its history all of the way back to 1397! While we enjoyed our brews, we dined on bratwursts with sour kraut as well as burgers made from bratwurst as well. It never ceases to amaze me how great a bratwurst with sour kraut actually goes with a nice beer. It really is a perfect pairing. While we dined, the German polka bands played various tunes along with the occasional interruption of the most famous polka song ever, the chicken dance! One of the latest crazes you now see at Oktoberfest festivals are people wearing chicken hats. Not sure when this started exactly, but sure makes Oktoberfest all of the more interesting for people watching. If you don’t know what I am talking about, just go to chickenhats.com. The polka would occasionally be interrupted by the clanking of large glass beer mugs or steins as friends offered toasts and the German word for cheers, Prost! More fraternal types may burst into zicke zacke zicke zacke hoi, hoi, hoi which comes from a German drinking song and often chanted at football (soccer) games. Overall, Oktoberfest is about bonding and making friends and putting aside life’s troubles, if only for a short while. If it takes some lederhosen and chicken hats to get out and meet our fellow man then so be it. In the end, we can have a laugh and relax for a moment with a tent full of strangers. In this time, when many people no longer even talk to their neighbors, it is a nice change of pace.
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