Annual Accolades
Oktoberfest returns for its 38th year
REPRINTED COURTESY OF BIG BEAR TODAY MAGAZINE

Tops in California. Number two in the country. Folks just about have to travel all the way to Munich to find an Oktoberfest celebration that compares to the one held in Big Bear Lake during seven fun-filled weekends through October 25.

The accolades continue to pour in for Big Bear Lake Oktoberfest, which in 2007 receives high honors from AOL for it's celebration. No wonder either; after all, it's German event founded by a German immigrant, with German beer and bands and bratwurst from a German butcher. All served in a high country mountain alpine setting reminiscent of Bavaria, in a building designed specifically to house Oktoberfest.

Authenticity is the name of the game at Big Bear Lake Oktoberfest, which returns for its 38th year. Chicken dancing at Big Bear Lake Oktoberfest has become an annual tradition for countless friends and family who gather to enjoy great food and drink, entertainment, and a party atmosphere that emphasizes first hand experience.

Indeed Oktoberfest is not so much a show as it is an experience. Whether they're on the dance floor or locking arms with others at their table and swaying back and forth, hoisting a cold one with others to toast fellowship and good times or doing the famous chicken dance, guests enjoy Big Bear Lake Oktoberfest hands-on.

"We try hard for crowd participation," says Monica Marini, daughter of founder and longtime burgermeister Hans, who now runs the event. "Oktoberfest originally started as a wedding reception and was all about family, and that's what makes ours different from others-it's a place where you become part of the festivities. We make every guest part of the celebration."

It's a formula that has worked nicely since Hans held his first Big Bear Oktoberfest around a campfire at the old Wawona Lodge. What began as an event for just his guests with plenty of beer and brats has turned into a mega-extravaganza that attracts 20,000 or more visitors each and every year. Big Bear's event may be on par with top Oktoberfests in Boston and Milwaukee, but you don't have to travel that far to enjoy a good fall festival. Instead just head to Big Bear Lake, only a couple hours or so from wherever you picked up this official souvenir magazine, but a world apart.

At 7,000 feet the aspens turn yellow and the oaks change to orange and red in a show more reminiscent of the Midwest or East Coast than sunny Southern California. The air turns crisp with warm days and fireplace-cool nights, the perfect environment to chicken dance the night away at Oktoberfest...only after you've hiked, biked, golfed, boated, or enjoyed a myriad of other activities that make Big Bear the ultimate four-seasoned resort.

Big Bear Oktoberfest is a nonstop barrage of fun from the minute guests first walk into the Convention Center, a unique building in itself designed specifically for the event. At first glance it's hard to make sense out of all the nonsense, with folks young and old flapping their arms and shaking their tails like chickens on the dance floor, perfect strangers sharing brews, and camaraderie all about. The revelry becomes contagious in no time.

Addicting might be a better phrase, at least for those who make Oktoberfest in Big Bear a ritual of fall. 'One family brought their twins every year, dressed in their cute little dirndls,' Marini says. 'Now, those girls are bringing their own children.'

When the bands aren't playing the German polkas or popular standards folks love to dance to, the party doesn't skip a beat because assistant burgermeister Ernie Tschannen brings to the many tables his own unique brand of entertainment. There isn't another one-man band around that can get an audience going like Ernie. He puts such a big sound out on his own that he gets dancers out on the floor just as well as the bands do.

Contests like log sawing, stein holding, yodeling and more let everyone get involved if they want. The ultimate contest is the Oktoberfest Queen competition, where ladies are judged not by beauty but a more useful attribute: the ability to carry steins, full at that, across the dance floor without spilling more than a few drops.

Dance groups kick up the beat too, with a touch of polka performed by the Danube-Swabain Dancers, and high-flying feet action by the Cripple Creek Cloggers. Big Bear's own Joyful Noise Cloggers perform as well. Then there's the famous Big Bear Polka Tots, the adorable youngsters who have danced their way on The Tonight Show and entertained generations.

Outdoors, enjoy the Budenstrasse (Avenue of the Booths) where vendors offering an array of unique gifts, food and games, along with the highest elevation biergarten (beer garden) in the United States. There's an outdoor barbecue grilling bratwursts, burgers and much more, in turn sending out tantalizing aromas throughout the festival hall.

Saturdays during the day and Sundays are perfect times to bring the kids, who enjoy games just for them, petting zoo, bounce houses, balloons and face painting. Children 12 and under get in for free each Sunday, and their parents can too if they utilize the coupon in Big Bear Today Magazine, available free at fine lodges, restaurants and shops around town, or online

By the time Oktoberfest winds down and the skiers and snowboarders get ready to break their boards out, guests will have clucked 456 or so chicken dances, and consumed 5,000 potato dumplings and 2,000 slices of apple strudel. And during Oktoberfest's previous 37 years, they've eaten enough bratwurst, knackwurst and such that if 'linked' end to end (pun intended), the sausages would stretch from Big Bear to San Bernardino and back...a distance of 70 miles! Truly a case of the 'wurst' of times during the best of times.

The Convention Center at Big Bear Lake
Big Bear Lake l California
[909] 585-3000
www.bigbearevents.com