Oktoberfest Day 1 (Bierleichen)

One of the biggest attractions to me starting my life in Munich was of course the possibility to live near the worlds biggest beer festival and party. This is now my first Oktoberfest, and I was and am so excited!

The Oktoberfest starts with the tapping of the keg at 12 noon, but if you try to get there around or just before that, then there is absolutely no chance you'll get a seat! It's for that reason I met my friend Alex at 8:30 so we can get into one of the big tents as soon as they open. Even then it was difficult but we found a nice spot in the Paulaner Winzerer Fähndl (big) tent. The problem is that means you are waiting in a beer tent for 3 hours before you  have your first beer. Hence the other guys didn't look that excited:

The party and the atmosphere started kicking up around 11:30, and then the brass band started walking around the hall playing some Bavarian drinking songs. Then the owner of the tent took a microphone and started talking and counting down the seconds to 12 from 45 seconds! That was a bit boring.


The first beer was served at 12, but we didn't get ours for another 40 minutes. Once it arrived the mood got really good. I drank mine a little faster than I should, causing problems later in the day (more on that later). The Paulaner Oktoberfest beer was quite nice, but too Lagery for my tastes, does the job though at 6.5% alcohol!

The mood improved a lot when the beer arrived

Inside the tent was really nice, the people were nice. I'll put it this way, there was a lot of eye candy everywhere!

And on to the name of this post (Bierleichen). It is a term used by Germans, or experienced Oktoberfest visitors, it means "Beer Corpses". It refers to the youngsters that don't realise the strength of the beer, get too drunk and pass out. While technically this didn't happen to me it kinda did. On the way home I either tripped, slipped or plain fell and broke my finger! It needs an operation and everything, my first visit to Oktoberfest!

The last 2 posts have been typed one handed because of this lol, but anyway it was so fun, and can't wait to get back there! 


Viel spaß homies!

Seehaus Biergarten

So it's a hot day in Munich, you don't have to work and you feel parched for a beer. What to do? The obvious answer is to go to a beer garden, but which one? There are over 50 to choose from.

My choice will normally be Seehaus, a really nice beer garden in the heart of the Englischer Garten by a lake. It serves Paulaner beer, one of my favourites of the Munich breweries, the prices are OK too, at €7,40 for a maß.

It so happened that I had some good news from work to celebrate, so I invited friends to join me here for some drinks, which turned out to also be some hair of the dog treatment after a very long and free cocktail night out. 

Anyway here are the pics :)

Breakfast of champions :)

So this is a really good beer garden, you should go! 

Oh and my parting gift - a duck gone insane...

Viel Spaß homies!

Not a normal Thursday night

I always think the best things come when you are least expecting them, that definitely happened on Thursday.

My original plan was to leave work a little earlier than usual and catch up with the backlog of housework (which is still yet to be done!). Then my friend Adi texted me saying they were going to Paulaner am Nockherberg, this got me really excited because it is near the end of the "Starkbierfest" and that place would be wild!

Starkbierfest in Germany is the festival of the strong beer, usually hitting around 8% abv and boy after even one maß you can feel it! I think Erik Orrgårde can vouch for just how strong they are. Oh a maß is a litre, here is what the glasses look like :)

So I met the gang from the Euro Youth Hostel (where I stayed for 2 months before finding my apartment) and we went to the Paulaner am Nockerberg by Tram. The first thing I thought was "Wow, I feel stupid NOT wearing Lederhosen!" The traditional garb of choice for Germans was everywhere to be seen and the girls came in their Dirndlns... This is us going in (there are no pics of us coming out!).

Se we went in to the beer garden and had our first Maß of Salvator, which is the Paulaner breweries Starkbier. I think it is my favourite Starkbier that I have tried because it does not have an overpowering strong taste, it is really quite drinkable for a 7.9% beer and then things started going down hill!

Exactly when we crossed the point of being regularly drunk to pissed off our arses I have no idea it wasn't long before we were inside and dancing on the tables.

Me and Adi made a prost which is the German "Cheers!" and one of us must have clinged the classes too hard because this happened.

The next thing I knew Adi (the one with the broken glass) was so drink she was falling over, and when you mix that with DANCING ON THE TABLE things inevitably went wrong. On the table behind us there was a guy that looked liked Dr Evil, he was definitely a very scary looking man. Adi didn't realise it but one time when she fell over dancing on the table she knocked over Dr Evil's beer and then he looked not only scary but furious to boot.

He slammed his empty glass down on our table and gave Adi the (DR) evil eye, and what did she do, just stared at him very blankly then carried on dancing. About half an hour later he came back for more but all he got that time was Adi's middle finger. I don't remember seeing him for a while after because Adi kept falling over and ROFLing which was just too funny. Me and Dr Evil did have one more encounter, as he was storming off he barged me in the shoulder. Slightly disoriented I turned around and waved.

In short that was a brilliant evening, and so after nearly 3 litres of Starkbeir I went home and the next morning gave my presentation at work.