Patron Comments

"Great beer, great food, great music! Be sure to come here with an empty stomach. The portions are generous and the beer is filling. The best beer I've ever had!!!

Saturday nights are great because they usually have a polka band play in the lower level bar area - and everyone gets into the great German drinking songs. The accordion players are wonderful as they play by your table while you dine - and they take requests. A great place for a birthday bash."

Oktoberfest in Minnesota
Jeremy Iggers - Star Tribune

Star & Tribune
Published September 21, 2000

Outside the Bayrischer Hof restaurant in Montrose, a 140-foot tent festooned with the blue and white checkered banners of Bavaria is erected in a field, and for one weekend in September, a tradition that began nearly 200 years ago in Munich is reenacted.

At long rows of tables, men and women hoist high their steins of Paulaner and Spaten Oktoberfest or Warsteiner lager, and are led by boisterous men in lederhosen in rousing cheers of 'Zicki-Zacki! Zicki-Zacki! Hoi Hoi Hoi!"

Oktoberfest at the Bayrischer Hof in Montrose can't quite match the original Munich festival for size, but the spirit is the same. The annual bacchanalia on Munich's Teresienwiese attracted 5.8 million visitors last year, who consumed 5.8 million liters of beer, 589,000 chickens, 320,000 wuerstchen (sausages) and 84 oxen. More than six million revelers are expected for this years' celebration, which began Sept. 16 and lasts until Oct. 3.

At Montrose, 40 miles west of Minneapolis on Hwy. 12, the tallies are more modest. Co-owner Paul Strehleke estimates that this year's festival, held on Sept. 8 and 9, attracted 2,500 visitors, who downed 2,350 liters of importer Paulaner, Spaten and Warsteiner beers, and about 1,800 bratwurst.

It started out as a Bavarian king's wedding celebration, but Oktoberfest in Minnesota celebrates the three great German Bs -- no, not Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, but Bratwurst, Bockwurst und Bier. (And some might add Besoffenheit (drinking to excess.)

The original Oktoberfest was a five-day festival in October of 1810, celebrating the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria and Princess Theresa of Sachsen Hildburghausen. Highlights included parades, a horse race, and lots of royal pomp and ceremony.

The horse race was such a hit that they held it again the following year, and included a livestock show with prizes for the best horses and oxen. In 1818, a carrousel was added, along with a couple of swings, and gradually some beer booths were opened.

The festival grew over the years; in 1886 the tavern owners teamed up with the local brewers to put up some tents, and the Munich brewers have had a monopoly on beer sales ever since.

The Montrose Oktoberfest, held the first weekend after Labor Day, is the first of the Minnesota season; most other local German restaurants celebrate Oktoberfest from mid-September to early October.