Why is Oktoberfest in September
The “Oktoberfest” started in Munich, Germany on 12th October, 1810. It was a celebration in the honor of the marriage between Crown Prince Ludwig and Princess Therese. The public party was a huge hit and from then on it has been continued till date. Although Prince Ludwig’s wedding occasion is the official date when the fest started, the tradition of having a fest at this time has been in existence from as early as the fifteenth century. The festival originally ran from the last Saturday of September to the first Sunday of October.
Oktoberfest was an occasion when people used to drink all the beer that was left from last year’s produce to make room for the new production, because back in those times when refrigerators were not yet invented, there was no effective way to preserve the leftover beers from last year. Also, beer was not made during the hot season as the brew often turned stale for the exact same problem of preservation. Beer brewing started at the end of the Oktoberfest, and ended in the month of March. The only way by which the brewers knew how to preserve the beer for longer was to add more alcohol to the final batches, which itself acted as a preservative. Every day of these seventeen or eighteen days, people in Munich drank their beers and celebrated the coming of the harvest season.
Today, the Oktoberfest is no longer just a beer fest celebrated only in Bavaria, but many places throughout the world have adopted this festival as a part of their culture. In the meanwhile, the Oktoberfest in Germany has become extremely popular, drawing in crowds from around the globe to Munich for the duration of the fest. It is reported that the Oktoberfest attracts over five million people each year to it, making it the biggest carnival in the world. The main reason as to why it is called Oktoberfest, although it technically starts in September is because, in a way, it celebrates the coming of the new harvest season in October. It should also be noted that Apart from Munich, in most other cities of Germany itself, Oktoberfest is actually celebrated on the first Sunday of October only.