These days, Germany's celebrated brewing towns and atmospheric old taverns can feel like retirement homes. Visitors to the south of Germany today (where more than half the nation's breweries are located) find few of the ardent young beer lovers that crowd craft watering holes in Copenhagen; Brussels; London; New York; Portland, Ore.; and even Rome. And while it's true that last fall's 200th Oktoberfest was bigger than ever, using Oktoberfest to measure the health of German beer culture is like using Disney World admissions to measure the health of American cinema. Once a decorous wedding pageant, Oktoberfest is a hot mess, with cheesy carnival rides and hordes chugging cheap lager as if it were Hawaiian Punch. Paris Hilton even showed up for the anniversary celebration.Oktoberfest is my favorite foreign holiday reappropriated by Americans to mean "day of the drunk." Did we kill Oktoberfest???
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Brauereisterben
This is most certainly not good news:
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2 comments:
At least we still have Cinco de Mayo. Viva the Mayo!
No no no. We didn't kill it. We just properly co-opted it, American style. Someday people in Germany won't even recognize Oktoberfest, then our job will be done.
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