Oktoberfest Comes to Atlanta
Two of last year’s Oktoberfest attendees. Photo by Praim Siribothi, 24/7 Photography, courtesy of Atlanta Sport and Social Club.
It’s time to strap on your lederhosen, Atlanta. Oktoberfest is coming to Historic Fourth Ward Park this weekend.
Hosted by the Atlanta Sport and Social Club, the group’s third official Oktoberfest looks to be the biggest yet. Korey Meek, the group’s director of marketing and sponsorships, estimates this year’s event will bring over 6,000 revelers for three days of live music, traditional German food, Bavarian-inspired events and, of course, an abundance of delicious beer.
The event will kick off Friday night with Julian Gressel, a German footballer playing for Atlanta United, tapping the first ceremonial keg, a symbolic gesture which signals the beginning of Oktoberfest, Meek said.
“This event will have a much bigger footprint than it has in the past,” Meek told Atlanta Loop. “We’ve got three big traditional beer gardens, each with different breweries and distributors.”
Three beer garden tents will be set up: Hofbrauhaus Freising, Bell’s Brewing Craft Beer and the German Bier Garden. Each will have several different varieties of beer on tap, including some rare pours.
“We’re doing some limited-release keg-tapings throughout the event,” Meek said. “There are six different kegs that are rare or hard to find.”
Not really a beer person? No problem. There’s plenty of other entertainment available over the course of the weekend. Each day there will be different traditional polka acts as well as other local musicians and DJs to enjoy. There will also be contests, including stein-hoisting, keg roll racing and a bratwurst toss. The brat toss, Meek laughs, is hilarious and exactly what it sounds like.
“These are just interesting events we’ve seen from other Oktoberfest events across the country,” Meek said, “and some of them trace all the way back to the traditional Oktoberfest in Munich.”
The traditional Oktoberfest is held annually in Bavaria, and it is a 16- to 18-day folk festival that runs from mid or late September to the first weekend in October. More than six million people from around the world attending the event, which began in 1810.
General admission tickets for Friday or Saturday are $23 a piece, a 3-day pass is $46, and a daily designated driver ticket is $10. For more information, visit Oktoberfest ATL.