Its a wonderful feeling.
Feel the love in the room from the floor to the cieling.
Its that time of year….Merry Christmas Happy Holidays.
***record scratch***
Wait, my fault. Its not Xmas, its Oktoberfest!
Like previous year’s haul these will be based on a number of unquantifiable attributes:
- Chuggability
- Maltiness
- Skunkiness
- Import Duty
Like previous years this will also be presented in no particular order…
Smog City Smogtoberfest
Chuggability: moderate.
Maltiness: moderate.
Skunkiness: moderate.
Import Duty? Negative.
A fine example of what happens when Trader Joe’s stocks your product on its shelves. I don’t really mean anything by that, I was just being witty *kicks pebble*. Overall 3.0/5
Athletic Brewing Co Fest Brew
Chuggability: Unbelievably high.
Maltiness: Unbelievably low.
Skunkiness: Only what’s between your legs.
Import Duty? Nein.
I’ve been drinking a lot more NA beer so I jumped on it. Then I instantly regretted it. All I will say, is at least they tried. Overall: 1.3/5
Bells Octoberfest
Chuggability: moderate.
Maltiness: high
Skunkiness: low but entirely unnecessary.
Import Duty? nope.
Still good but I recall this being better last year. I conferred with Swiss and he concurred. Overall: 3.0/5
KC BC Zoktoberfest Lager
Chuggability: moderate.
Maltiness: moderate.
Skunkiness: for the love of God, why?
Import Duty? no, and it has that going for them.
I was most upset when it occurred to me these four pints cost me 750 calories. There are better ways to ruin your workout. Overall 2.5/5
Societe Brewing Octoberfest Lager
Chuggability: high.
Maltiness: fairly low.
Skunkiness: low.
Import Duty? No.
This one is a bit lighter, so what stands out is still the simulated skunk. While I stand by my indication it is low, the rest of the beer doesn’t counter it so it seems higher than it should be. Overall 2.8/5.
Pedalhaus Oktoberfest
Chuggability: high.
Maltiness: moderate.
Skunkiness: moderate.
Import Duty? only the applicable SALT.
I have to have at least one local offering but I forgot which one I reviewed. This might be a repeat, and as we’ve discovered even if I did it might not be exactly the same as last year’s. It was fine, nothing to complain about. Overall 2.8/5.
Hofbräu Oktobrfestbier
Chuggability: moderate.
Maltiness: high.
Skunkiness: nein.
Import Duty? Damn you MAGATARDS!
There must be at least one offering from the fatherland. I’ve had it and probably reviewed it. It was however it bottles last time I bought it so I was interested to find out if it had the same effect that canning did to the Spaaten offerings that came out last year after my review was posted.
Yeah its better. This one is the standout of this year’s haul. When discussing with Swiss he also concurred it was particularly good this year and indicated his local watering hole has this one on tap. Is it good enough to the point where I might rethink my opinion the Germans are overrated and anyone competent enough will produce a product of similar quality? Let’s not get carried away, but this is good. Overall 3.5/5
If you rely on a special time of the year to be, then you are not First.
How many of us are unemployed or seemingly unemployed based on the frequency of our commenting.
The two of us have to be at the top of that list.
Hey, now. I strongly resemble such unemployment status. Closer to the “seemingly” side these days.
Monday Evan?
Though I’m not unemployed, I will remain “seemingly” unemployed until next Monday, Oct. 5. This year:
* Walmart – fired on Jan. 15 cuz too many points, despite always calling in. 34hrs PTO eaten. *frump*
* Meijer – Gas station, curbside for a week, and Receiving bay
* Standardized testing contract for 5 weeks while at Meijer
* Escrow processing for three weeks before they let me go, but paid for FIVE!
* Document Agent for Cox Auto begins soon
I’d be beyond thrilled if I only have to file those five for taxes. The gig starting soon, if I mesh well into it, will be enough to get a comfy place of my own for at or under 1/3 of my earnings. Game changing opp! Yeesh. I hope the gig’s easier than it sounds, quota-wise. It kinda has to be, and I’m technically pretty well-trained at finding shit, scanning and organizing it.
*perches fingers together* Should be interesting.
Hofbräu Oktobrfestbier
I avoided the HofBräu tents when I was at Oktoberfest because there were too many Americans in them. And then I ended up partying with Americans at all the tents I went to.
Hofbräu used to make both their current and original Oktoberfest for the American market. Poking around the Intertubes, it looks like they’ve stopped doing so. This looks like the current Oktoberfest that you’ll get in the Wiesn (original is in the Oide Wiesn).
I love German beer in Germany. I need to find the time to go back and engage in debauchery.
Jeebus MS. I hope you didn’t have to drive anywhere after doing your research.
I haven’t had a beer for two months.
I have a couple NAs in the pantry I should chill them and enjoy this afternoon.
Some are pretty decent.
Enjoy?
In Oktoberfest news, you could have gone to Mass at Oktoberfest.
” At the same time, all festival guests were warmly invited to pause together and pray for a peaceful and safe Oktoberfest.” It may be worth praying certain, uh, uninvited guests don’t show up with a large truck.
There was bombing at Oktoberfest in 1980, but the perpetrator was a guy who had been involved in neo-Nazi groups.
There was a bomb scare in 2025. The scare involved an uncomfirmed threat to the Wiesn, but all the police activity was not near the Wiesn despite some news outlets claiming otherwise. The only information I could find on the suspect is that he was a 57 year old German citizen with a dual-citizen (German and Brazilian) adult daughter.
When I was at Oktoberfest pre-Rona Panic, there was a fuck ton of security around it. When I went into the Wiesn, I had to walk through a gauntlet of security guards who occasionally pulled people out for searches. They were backed up by police with what looked like MP-5s. The Munich and Bavarian authorities know that any attack on it would be bad for business.
There was a Mass held on Sunday at the local Oktoberfest as well.
Well Bavaria is majority Catholic.*
*Before all the diverse immigrants. Now, who knows?
Ah-HAH! I get a raft of grief here whenever I mention drinking NA beers with the resident recovering alcoholic. Have you found any you actually like? (I don’t expect nor would I ask you to devote an entire post to them. You rarely devote
the entiremuch of any of the post to beer anyway.)I’ve settled on Mich Ultra Zero Lime as my usual go-to. It’s low carb and it’s as if Sonic offered a Barley Limeade./obviously not a beer connoisseur
Not Adahn makes beer?
No, 🐱👤 steals them from his fridge.
Good kitty! 😁️👍️🐈⬛️
I’ve had Athletic a couple of times at fests (their table was closer than the nearest water station), it’s been non-offensive. I take issue with the price point it sells at though, considering it’s the same price as regular beer, I don’t pick it up.
I second Athletic. Their Wheat, IPA and Hazy-IPA are all good for what they are. I prefer those first two.
OT… years of helping fund anti-AI hysteria in the US seems to be bearing fruit for the CCP.
It would be funny if the Chinese AI decides the CCP is the problem and deletes the party for being insufficiently devoted.
More likely the power will simply fail to the whole country and the Chinese AI will shut down.
I imagine most of this is just the government deciding it wants more natives in this field, but as for outsiders… who ponders two job offers, one from the CCP and one from the US and says, “I’ll take China”.
I certainly wouldn’t take the Chinese job.
The CCP just this week announced a new law where they can prohibit foreigners from leaving the country for up to three years if they fear them taking information “detrimental” out. No trial, no jail, just you can’t leave.
Just… wow.
Meanwhile they come to the US, rob us blind of industrial secrets, and nothing else happens.
There is a german beer store near me which i realised i rarely visit. I went there a couple of weeks ago but did not look for fest beer. This was their fridge then
https://photos.app.goo.gl/MCEjzyVmutverMjKA
Some good ones in there. I especially like Weihenstephaner. I don’t see my favorite – Spaten (lager).
Weihenstaphaner is great.
I see Kloster Andechs in there. I remember when you had to go to Germany to get it. I was happy when it came into America. Much easier to get a hold of and just as good.
There are good biers in there. None of my personal favorite, Reutberg Dunkel, but a solid line up.
Try a dunkel weissen. Your taste buds will “danke du.”
i dont like wheat beer.
danke dir
/pedant
I quite liked this one
https://photos.app.goo.gl/7gWBWj78AWaxAtZF6
Fun fact each beer costs an extra 25 american cents if you want it cold from the fridge
I think I’ve had that.
Neat. I have been to Flensburg – on the border Dänemark.
So fucking tedious
A federal judge has held the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in contempt for deporting a teenage asylum seeker to El Salvador in violation of court orders and directed the Trump administration to return him to the United States so he can pursue his asylum claim.
In an order issued Friday, Stephanie A. Gallagher found that federal officials violated the court’s Nov. 25, 2024, April 23, 2025, and July 29, 2026 orders when they removed the teenager, identified in court filings as E.L.A., despite protections afforded to him under a class-action settlement governing certain asylum seekers who entered the United States as unaccompanied minors.
The contempt finding primarily compels compliance with the court’s orders and remedies the effects of the removal, including by requiring E.L.A.’s return to the United States.
Bring him back and keep him in solitary confinement for eight years while his case winds its way through the system.
Where “solitary confinement” is actually going to be a nice hotel and three squares a day until the fraudulent “asylum” case is inevitably declined. I can only think of one reason why he would be afraid to return to his native country.
I lived in Freiburg, Deutschland for a semester at university there in 2008. My first trip in Korea was to Japan in 2010, but I also went to Oktoberfest later the same year! I went back to Freiburg, cuz it’s (still) my favorite city in the world, but I went to the fest in Munich and dropped into nearby Konstanz as well, which I was tremendously impressed with.
Wow, that was a long time ago. Still upset with myself, my biggest regret sparks from 2005/06 at IU with coulda/woulda been my dream gal, but I was too naive, unsure of myself, and foolish, ignoring a year of her rolling out the most comforting welcome mat I coulda asked for. Such is the pity of youth, I s’pose. Wasted on ’em, yes.
I hit the real Oktoberfest while I was living in Würzburg – still my favorite city. But I have heard that Germany has changed a lot in, what… forty years?? JFC.
You say it’s not XMas yet, but I’ve heard Christmas music being played at two different bars yesterday. I will not be going back to those bars if I have any choice in the matter (outside of burning it to the ground).
Fake news
This week, a report that generally garners little attention, the S&P’s purchasing managers’ index, showed the economy could be picking up steam. The report, which measures manufacturing activity, registered its biggest monthly increase since 2022, while a reading on the service sector jumped to the highest level since 2021, powered by new orders.
The labor market is showing similar resilience. August payrolls jumped by 162,000, while the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%. Until this spring, healthcare and social assistance had largely carried the labor market. Since then, hiring has broadened to include a wider range of industries, and over the summer, total job gains averaged a solid 74,000 per month.
Top Federal Reserve policymakers view consumer strength as a primary driver. Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh noted at a recent press conference that economic strength is the primary driver of long-term yields.
But we’re one Trump rain fart away from a full on depression!
That new, desperately needed coworker I got a couple weeks ago and disappeared less than a week later? Turns out he got a better offer.
“rain fart”
Eew.
I got back to my house, slept for an inordinate amount of time (amazing how much more comfortable your own bed is than any random hotel bed) and went into the end of month routine. That vacation wiped out my retro pay and my regular pay for the whole check. Add in the end of month bills and I’m at lower cash on hand than when I set out.
😣