B is for ‘Beer’ and M is for ‘More, More, More!’
Before our minds get all sudsy with beer, allow me to share a few tidbits about Oktoberfest, which is right around the corner — getting hazy and all in this one stiffy of a September.
Oktoberfest was the fruit of a wedding. The one between a Bavarian prince (Ludwig) and a German princess (Therese) where 40,000 people partied for five straight days beginning on Oct. 12, 1810. Must’ve been a hell of a hangover for everyone. It then became an annual shindig in Munich and beyond its borders. By 1960, it turned into the largest folk festival in the world, which spans from late September to the first weekend in October.
In our own neck of the woods, in last year’s Oktoberfest event at Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila which has been marking happy beer-day for five years already, over 16,000 one-liter mugs of beer were consumed in a span of two days by 3,800 peeps. In those two days also, one ton of German sausages (Ring Bratwurst, cheese sausage, Cervelat sausages, MünchnerWeisswurst, Münchner Bratwurst and Hungarian sausages) were turned to bar chow. Add to that the stats of 320 kgs of pork knuckles, 500 kgs of chicken, 300 kgs of sauerkraut finished off by revelers.
This year, by the time the 12-gun salute heralds the tapping of the first keg by the mayor of Munich, and cries of O’zapt ist! (It is tapped!) are heard across the land, and everyone goes merrily hoping around in lederhosen and dirndl, you will find me at the Harbor Garden Tent as the German Club Manila and Sofitel celebrate the 77th Oktoberfest in the land.
The Harbor Garden Tent will be transformed once again into an expansive biergärten for the most authentic beer festival in the country on Oct. 16 and 17 featuring towers upon towers of ice-cold San Miguel beer, the musical stylings of the Bavarian Sound Express, as well as Bavarian dishes (roasted pork knuckles, roasted calf, laugen rolls, grilled German sausages and apfelstrudel).
“Oktoberfest is one of the events here in the Philippines where no one is traditionally late,” points out Sofitel GM Adam Laker. “Normally, weddings and functions at the hotel start an hour late. But during Oktoberfest, people are knocking on the doors early (laughs).”
Well, suds up at Sofitel.
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For information on tickets, call the German Club Manila at 894-2899 or email reservations@germanclub.ph. For special room offers, call Sofitel at 551-5555, email at H6308@sofitel.com, or visit Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila, CCP Complex, Roxas Blvd., Pasay City.
