The Germany Oktoberfest in Munich

Its October and its imperative that we talk about Oktoberfest (Germany).
In many ways Beer could be called the national drink of Germany and Oktoberfest just hits the nail on the wall.

Think Germany and most people think of Oktoberfest - huge steins of beer, singing, platters of sausages, men dressed in Lederhosen and ladies dressed in Dirndls. 100,000 or so other people to party with! Held the last two weeks of September into the first week of October because of Munich's great fall weather, Oktoberfest has been a tradition for almost 200 years.

Oktoberfest Beers:
Six Munich breweries, Löwenbräu, Spaten, Augustiner, Hofbräu, Paulaner and Hacker-Pschorr, brew a special beer just for the Oktoberfest. The beer, Wiesnbier is slightly darker and stronger than a normal Pils. It is served in a one-liter-tankard, ein Mass. This year the cost for ein Mass is 7.50 euros.

The Oktoberfest Atmosphere :
The atmosphere at Oktoberfest is friendly and very lively. Whether you are at the small stands, at the fair or in one of the tents, you are sure to be caught up in the fun of it all regardless of age or gender.
To make the Oktoberfest more family and senior friendly, the tents only play quiet music until 6 pm. At 6 pm, Schlager and pop music goes into full swing.

The Oktoberfest Foods:
Foods at Oktoberfest are as much a part of the tradition as beer, sausages, oxen, pigs knuckles, roasted chicken, duck, fish, and traditional pastries, noodles, dumplings, plenty of potato salad and sauerkraut, giant pretzels and cheeses are all on offer. It makes my mouth water just to think about it.

Fun Oktoberfest Facts:
30% of the year's production of beer by Munich breweries will be consumed in the two weeks of Oktoberfest.
12,000 People are employed at the Oktoberfest. Of these, 1600 are waitresses.
There is available seating for 100,000 people.
The six Oktoberfest breweries, (Spaten, Augustiner, Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr, Hofbräuhaus, Löwenbräu) sold 6 million mugs of beer in 2005 (5.5 million in 2004).
Roasted oxen: 88
Sausages: 220,000 pairs
Roast chickens: 460,000

The History of The Munich Oktoberfest:
Oktoberfest is one great big international celebration. People have been coming to Munich for almost 200 years for the celebration and now come from all over the world to participate in this 16 day party.
Oktoberfest started as a wedding celebration party. Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, who was later crowned King Ludwig I, wanted the people of Munich to share in the celebration of his marriage to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen on October 12, 1810. He organized a horserace, offered copious amounts of beer and food, invited all the people of Munich and voila! Oktoberfest was born.
The festival was such a success that Ludwig decided to hold it again the following year in conjunction with the state agricultural festival. In 1816 carnival booths were added and in 1819 the town fathers of Munich decided that the festival should be celebrated every year. Over time, the length of the festival was increased and the date moved backward because of the great weather at the end of September in Bavaria.
Since its beginnings the Oktoberfest has thus been canceled 24 times due to war, disease and other emergencies. By 1960, the last year that horse races were held, Oktoberfest was already a world-famous festival. People from all over the world started attending Oktoberfest in droves.
Oktoberfest is now celebrated all over the world at different venues and in varying measures but definitely, Oktoberfest Munich is the king of festivals and we have King Ludwig to thank for it. A toast to King Ludwig and Therese!
Sixteen days, six million people, and some great big tents The modern celebration has replaced the small tents with giant brewery-sponsored beer halls that can hold up to 5,000 people apiece. The party has also grown in length, to become a 16-day extravaganza ending the first Sunday in October.

Motivation
The Mumbai Mayfest anytime in the future..what say guys!!!

Beer Quotes

"Well ya see, Norm, it's like this... A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers."
-Cliff Clavin, of Cheers

"Why is American beer served cold? So you can tell it from urine."
-David Moulton

"Beer: Helping ugly people have sex since 1862!"
-Anonymous

"When we drink, we get drunk. When we get drunk, we fall asleep. When we fall asleep, we commit no sin. When we commit no sin, we go to heaven. Sooooo, let's all get drunk and go to heaven!"
-Brian O'Rourke

"Always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."
-Winston Churchill

"People who drink light 'beer' don't like the taste of beer; they just like to pee a lot."
-Capital Brewery, Middleton, WI

"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on."
-Dean Martin
"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind."
-Humphrey Bogart

"Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed - Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, 'It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.'"
-Jack Handy

"Make sure that the beer - four pints a week - goes to the troops under fire before any of the parties in the rear get a drop."
-Winston Churchill to his Secretary of War, 1944

"A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her."
-W.C. Fields

"Everybody has to believe in something.....I believe I'll have another drink."
-W.C. Fields

"Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer."
-Dave Barry

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
-Ernest Hemmingway

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
-Benjamin Franklin

"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."
-For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemmingway

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer."
-Abraham Lincoln

"We old folks have to find our cushions and pillows in our tankards. Strong beer is the milk of the old."
-Martin Luther

"Time is never wasted when you're wasted all the time."
-Catherine Zandonella

"They who drink beer will think beer."
-Washington Irving

"One of the hallmarks of the baby boomer generation is that it doesn't live like the previous generation. It hasn't yet given up jeans and T-shirts or beer."
-Ron Klugman, SVP, Coors Brewing

"I drink to make other people interesting."
-George Jean Nathan

"May your glass be ever full. May the roof over your head be always strong. And may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead."
-Old Irish Toast

"A bar is better than a newspaper for public discussion."
-Jim Parker, on the importance of a healthy pub culture

"He was a wise man who invented beer."
-Plato
"God made pot. Man made beer. Who do you trust?"

-Restroom in The Irish Times, Washington DC

"I never met a pub I didn't like."
-Pete Slosberg, Founder of Pete's Brewing Company

"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
-Homer Simpson

"This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption... Beer!"
-Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, Friar Tuck

"I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day."
-Frank Sinatra

"[I recommend]… bread, meat, vegetables and beer."
-Sophocles' philosophy of a moderate diet

"Fermentation may have been a greater discovery than fire."
-David Rains Wallace

"Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the world."
-Kaiser Welhelm

"Work is the curse of the drinking class."
-Oscar Wilde

"Who does not love beer, wine, women and song remains a fool his whole life long."
-Carl Worner

"When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading."
-Henny Youngman

24 hours in a day, 24 beers in a case. Coincidence?
-Stephen Wright

"A quart of ale is a dish for a king."
-William Shakespeare

"I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety."
-Shakespeare, Henry V

"I do not drink more than a sponge."
-Rabelais, 17th-century French satirist

"I decided to stop drinking with creeps. I decided to drink only with friends. I've lost 30 pounds."
-Ernest Hemingway

"Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer."
-Henry Lawson

"I drink when I have occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion."
-Miguel De Cervantes

"Fill with mingled cream and amber, I will drain that glass again. Such hilarious visions clamber through the chambers of my brain. Quaintest thoughts, queerest fancies, come to life and fade away. What care I how time advances? I am drinking ale
today."
-Edgar Allan Poe

"Whiskey's too rough, Champagne costs too much, Vodka puts my mouth in gear.
I hope this refrain, Will help me explain, As a matter of fact, I like beer."
-Tom T. Hall

"But if at church they would give some ale. And a pleasant fire our souls to regale.
We’d sing and we’d pray all the live long day, Nor ever once from the church to
stray."
-William Blake

"I work until beer o’clock."
-Steven King

"Keep your libraries, your penal institutions, your insane asylums... give me beer.
You think man needs rule, he needs beer. The world does not need morals, it
needs beer... The souls of men have been fed with indigestibles, but the soul could
make use of beer."
-Henry Miller

"In my opinion, most of the great men of the past were only there for the beer."
-A.J.P. Taylor, British historian

"There may be a few good men who don't drink, but they've got to prove it."
-Col. Lincoln Karmany, USMC

"Drunk is feeling sophisticated when you can't say it."
-Anonymous

"Beer - Because one doesn't solve the world's problems over white wine."
-Anonymous

"If beer and women aren't the answer, then you're asking the wrong questions."
-Anonymous

"The church is near, but the road is icy. The bar is far away, but I will walk carefully." -Russian proverb

Beer Cocktails

Bee Sting: dark beer (Haywards Black) and orange juice.

Black Velvet: Mix Haywards Black and champagne, half and half.

Boilermaker: a glass of beer (Fosters) with a shot of whiskey (go in for Black Label).

Broadway: A cocktail popular in Japan. Mix beer with Cola and you have the Broadway

Caribbean Night: Beer and an ounce of coffee liqueur.

Donald: glass of beer with a shot of rum (Old Monk!!! What else)

Gator Beer: beer mixed with Gatorade

Lager and lime: Add a dash of lime juice or lime cordial to Fosters

Loaded Peroni: basically a high octane shandy, it's lager with a shot of Bacardi Limon

Raging Bull: Peroni, tequila, and Red Bull

Red Eye: Add a shot of tomato juice to Fosters (this cocktail is also known as Tomato Beer or a Red Rooster).

Shandy: Fill a beer mug with Fosters and top with ginger ale, ginger beer or lemonade and you have the classic Shandy.

South Wind: Beer with a shot of melon liqueur.

Uboot: beer and vodka

Beer Belly : A myth

No we are not talking about the blog but about the logic behind beer bellies.

Most of the people reading this blog would be of the opinion that drinking beer leads to belly which one can flaunt around.

But its not the beer that leads to the belly.

A "beer belly" is caused by eating too much food. No beer or other alcohol beverage is necessary to cause that.

There is an entire list of myths associated with Beer.

Beer Myth 1: Beat the Beer Belly with Light Beer

OK, light beers have maybe 90-100 calories, regular beers generally have less than 200 calories. A beer lover would say the difference is comparable to the difference between McDonalds and a 5 star restaurant. A dietitian would tell you the difference is negligible.

Beer Myth 2: The darker the beer, the more alcohol it contains

Not even close. Haywards Black is black, and has 4.2% alcohol. The color of a beer comes from the toasted malts, which has no effect on alcohol content. Ingredients like rice syrup, honey, and corn syrup add alcohol to beer, but do not influence the color.

Beer Myth 3: The Peroni they serve in Italy is better

It seems widely accepted that beer in "the old country" is better than what they export to the rest of the world. The brewing process is cheap, so why would a brewery risk their reputation by brewing a different beer for export? It doesn't make sense, and it's not true.

Beer Myth 4: Beer shouldn't be Bitter

The bitterness of a beer comes from the hops. Hops are in all beers to balance the sweet malts and to act as a preservative. Some beers have a lot of hops, like India Pale Ales (IPAs) and some beers have less hops, like Wheat Beers. Hops can give a beer complexity and add all sorts of flavors and aromas, like pine, citrus, and earthiness. Hops are why people say beer is an acquired taste, but they also make beer delicious.

Beer Myth 5: The best beers are in green bottles.

As it turns out, brown bottles protect the beer from the light much better than green bottles or clear bottles. This myth comes from when there was a shortage of brown glass in Europe after WWII. The European beers were bottled in green instead, so green bottles came to represent imports. This certainly isn't the case anymore.


Beer Myth 6: Women don't like beer

Thats crazy! My female friends love beer almost as much as I do. Women have brewed more beer than men in the History of Beer.

So chuck these myths and go ahead and 'Pint Your Love'