Last weekend, Matt and I traveled minutes from our house to Germania's Oktoberfest celebration. We always enjoy Germania's Oktoberfest, and we have a tacit agreement that we'll go every year. But now that Germania's has ended, we decided to try some other area celebrations.
Hamilton, just north of us, is known neither for its culture nor its class. But since Matt and I are fans of Oktoberfests wherever they may be, we had to try Hamilton's annual celebration at least once. And having tried it once, we will never go back. The highlight of our trip was the authentic biergarten look of the area. It was cool and dark, save for the bare bulbs strung between the trees. The festival seating, the crowds, the German beer (Spaten even!) was all very authentic.
Then there were the lowlights. Despite the fact that the band was dressed in leiderhosen (denim leiderhosen) and playing brass instruments, the music they played was awful. YMCA? Love Train? Do they know any German songs? We didn't even hear Ein Prosit, which is inexcusable. The whole song lasts only about 30 seconds. They couldn't learn it for Oktoberfest?
And the food. It might have been good, but there were 200 people in line for the "real food" so we settled for German desserts. We decided to try their Black Forest cake and a cream puff. They brought out these (and other) desserts still in their Costco packaging. Could you not try to make it seem authentic? The huge pretzels we got to tide us over (while the men drank their Spaten) were cold and a little wet. Ew.
So, instead of waiting an hour in line for bratts, sauerkraut, and schnitzel, a lot of people chose the much shorter line for that other old German tradition. Southern pulled pork BBQ? Seriously? I shouldn't have been surprised when I saw someone walking by with a "German eggroll" sitting on his plate, nestled between potato pancakes and sauerkraut balls. But I was. I was surprised and disappointed. Not wanting to wait in line or spend any more time there than we needed to, we opted to forgo the German food... at least until MainStrasse's Oktoberfest next weekend!
