News about Oktoberfest 2024: How Deutsche Bahn is preparing for the Wiesn

“In my next life I want to be Oktoberfest beer and not Monday,” said Augustiner boss Martin Leibhard at the official Oktoberfest beer tasting in the Bavaria Park pub on Thursday evening. “When I get home, my wife will say, you have a perfectly balanced body.”

After his predecessor Andreas Steinfatt left the Paulaner brewery, Leibhard appointed him chairman of the Munich Breweries Association. Steinfatt was invited as a guest and just watched as Leibhard led the Oktoberfest beer tasting together with Andreas Maisberger, the managing director of the association of the six Oktoberfest breweries. And you have to admit: it was a lot of fun.

The brewmasters of the six breweries were allowed to introduce their beers, as they do every year, but this time they were brief and to the point. The descriptions of pronounced hop flowers, fruity notes on the first sip and spicy malt aromas sound sweet, but also interchangeable. And Maisberger knows: “Everyone says they know their beer so well.” So he thought he would put his guests to the test with a blind tasting. For this, the seating arrangement was changed as a precaution. Oktoberfest hosts, brewery managers and city politicians sat at their tables in a colorful jumble and tasted their way through their six glasses. The stands are only marked with numbers in front of them. The guests could then assign these to the breweries on their cell phones.

This much can be revealed: There were supposedly brewmasters who didn’t recognize their own beer. In the end, only one person in the room got six correct numbers. The majority were left with a few lucky hits.

But one thing is also true: Oktoberfest beer tastes really good, and that from all breweries. The blind tasting even showed sworn Augustiner fans that, if they didn’t know, the beers from the five other Munich breweries could taste better. To save the guests’ honor, there was a little Oktoberfest quiz afterwards. The questions about the history of Oktoberfest did earn them a few points. For example: How many hits did Thomas Wimmer need when tapping the first beer in the Schottenhamel in 1950? (It was 17, by the way.)

Wiesn city councilor Anja Berger (Greens) and Wiesn manager Clemens Baumgärtner (CSU) were certainly in a great mood. And the deputy mayor Dominik Krause (Greens) also mingled happily with the beer-loving crowd for the first time.