Germany is famed for many things… the industrial heart of Europe, BMW and Mercedes cars, umpah bands and beer.

Now if you take the alst two of those, add in some local patriotism, a massive tent and super-women able to carry atleast 6 litres of beer at a time then you have the most German of Germanisms.  The great beer festival.

Beer festivals in Germany are commonplace, almost everyone will know of the huge Oktoberfest held in Munich but what you might not realise is that there are smaller versions of these events happening almost all the time.

A lot of the smaller towns in Germany and especially in the south of Germany have their own breweries and their own beer fests in their local town.  You will find that a lot of locals are quite loyal to their own beer brand and will always carry a crate with them if ever they leave the area (this might not be true, but I like to think of the Germans as always having two bottles of their local beer just in the first aid kit just next to the plasters and on top of the safety pins).

There is quite a family atmosphere at most of these smaller fests, but towards the end of the night the kids are usually in bed and the adults of all ages are out to play.

The drescode for these events is simple… Lederhosen for the men and the Dirndl for woman (cleavage is optional but embraced by most hehe).

You may be thinking now of the traditional Heidi and Klaus stereotypes… and you would probably be right, but I tell ya now – until you have experienced the warmth and friendlyness of the people at these festival you won’t believe it.

By the end of the night everybody, without exception is dancing away on the tables, reciting the words to songs that mean virtually nothing and just enjoying themselves.  To be honest though it is nights like these that make me really want to go back home to Maidstone and spend the night avoiding fights, over zealous bouncers and binge drinking ladies, truly miss it!

So here below are the photos of Luke and I binge drinking with our couchsurfing host Manuela and the lovely Gudi who is modelling the Dirndl

Happy Travellin’