• the beer zone home
• beer humor
  
• beer funny photos
  
• holiday beer fun
  
• the big beer events
  

• the wine zone home
• wine humor
  
• wine funny photos
  
• holiday wine fun
  
• the big wine events
  

• beer zone links

• rotton beerholics
• freakin' beerholics
• crazy beerholics
• wacky beerholics
• absurd beerholics
• weird beerholics

Welcome

Welcome to The Beer Factory

If you would like a link here, and would like to link to us, we'd be happy to oblige as long as you have a site related to animals, nature, photos, public domain, or any other category that is relevant to this site.

Link page

Oktoberfest: The Premier Beer Festival

Oktoberfest is a two-week festival held each year in Munich, Bavaria, Germany during late September and early October. It is one of the most famous events in the city and the world's largest fair, with some six million people attending every year.

The event traditionally takes place during the 16 days up to and including the first Sunday in October. The schedule was changed following German reunification in 1990 so that if the first October Sunday is the 1st or 2nd then the festival will go on until October the 3rd (German Unity Day). Thus, the festival is now 17 days when the 1st Sunday is October 2nd and 18 days when it is October 1st. The festival is held on an area named the Theresienwiese (Field [or meadow] of Therese), often called “d’ Wiesn” or “d'Waasn” for short. Beer plays a central role in the fair, with every festival beginning with a keg of beer tapped by the Mayor of Munich who declares “O'zapft is!” (Bavarian: “It’s tapped!”). A special Oktoberfest beer is brewed for the occasion, which is slightly darker and stronger, in both taste and alcohol. It is served in a one-liter-tankard called Maß. The first mass is served to the Bavarian Minister-President. Only local Munich breweries are allowed to serve this beer in a Bierzelt, a beer tent which is large enough for thousands.

The first "Oktoberfest" took place on October 12, 1810: For the commemoration of their marriage, Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) and Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen (namesake of the Theresienwiese festival grounds) organized a great horse race (the marriage took place on October 12th, the horse race on October 17th, therefore there are different dates named as being the first Oktoberfest).

The first 100 years

In the year 1813, the Oktoberfest was called off as Bavaria was involved in the Napoleonic war. In 1816, carnival booths appeared. The main prizes were silver, porcelain, and jewelry. In 1819, The town fathers of Munich took over festival management. They decided that the Oktoberfest should be celebrated every year without exception. Later, it was lengthened and the date pushed forward. The reason being that the end of September in Bavaria often has very good weather. The high temperature in the first week of Oktoberfest nears 30 °C which stimulates the thirst of the visitors. However, today the last week of Oktoberfest is still in October

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Beer Complaints Handled here:

Disclaimer

To the best of our knowledge these are all from either the public domain or free to use, and a link either has been or will soon be placed on our link page whenever possible to credit the sources of the photos and tips.
If for some reason we have inadvertantly placed a photo or image or article that is not freely available we will be glad to remove it upon request.

We hope you enjoy these photos and tips.