The largest festival in the world. The pride of Munich. A good excuse to drink more beer! And here at NIBBLERS, we think it’s a great reason to break out some really outstanding German rieslings and late harvest specialties.   Originally, Oktoberfest was a one-day celebration of the marriage of King Leopold I of Bavaria to Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen in 1810, falling right about when traditional Autumn Harvest festivals were generally held. Over the course of years, it expanded to 16 days(occasionally 17 due to an adjustment to include German reunification day), moved earlier into the end of September for better weather, added a parade, carnival booths, beer expositions, crossbow shooting competitions, opening ceremonies & a year-round conceptual statue.  Emmtedank, the German thanksgiving harvest festival, becomes the end of the Oktoberfest. This is the coolescence of small regional harvest festivals which have historically been held all over the German speaking region of Europe. In 2007, almost six and one-half million people visited the Oktoberfest celebration in Munich. As you can imagine, this is a logistic nightmare, in terms of planning on boarding, feeding & providing facilities this many visitors. The city of Munich sets aside not only it’s public facilities during the festival, but a broad thouroughfare & enormous festival grounds, the Theresienweisse, all year round for this approximately two week event.  Since 1818, the focus of the event has involved the six “official” breweries of Munich, the only breweries to produce an authorized Oktoberfest beer. Tonight, we are offering two, the Spaten Ur-Marzen & the Paulaner Oktoberfest Marzen Amber. Hacker-Pschorr, another of the Oktoberfest breweries, is represented here by their fabulous dark hefe-weizen. German wines have been gaining in international recognition, and tonight we are delighted to offer a broad selection of rieslings, sylvaner, gewurztraminer & even pinot noir, along with some truly outstanding eisweins & trockenbeerenauslese. Enjoy safely.

Oktoberfest in Pleasant Hill. Enjoy the fun. Save the airfare.