Not Another Oktoberfest?

Yes!  Just two weeks after I attended Oktoberfest in the Colorado mountain town of Breckenridge, I walked to Lower Downtown Denver after work last night and attended Denver's version of Oktoberfest. And I immediately noticed very striking differences between the two festivals.  For one thing, it seems to be all about the beer here.  The festival features steins for sale at $35 each empty and $40 filled (I assume with beer, but the sign didn't specifically say that).  You can, of course, just buy a regular pint in a plastic cup.  It was Happy Hour when I got there (two pints for $6.00), and the crowd was electric over that - happy hour was on the lips of everyone.  However, as you can see in the photo on the left, a lot of people were going for the Full Monty.

There are other differences between this Oktoberfest and the one in Breckenridge.  The crowd in Denver is decidedly younger.  And the biggest difference of all was that the only people wearing lederhosen and Bavarian peasant dresses were the people in the booths trying to sell you something, like the young lady in the photograph on the right doing the cooking at Das Turkey Leg, which by the way was also up in Breckenridge. Up there, a great deal of the visitors were in Bavarian garb - not just the vendors.  It definitely felt a lot more like Oktoberfest up there.  And whereas the band was a German one up in Breckenridge, the one in Denver was a local rock band.  Dare I say it, the Denver Oktoberfest felt a bit like A Taste of Colorado.  De je vu all over again.

Oktoberfest used to take place at Larimer Square, between 14th and 15th Streets on Larimer Street, a one block area where the old buildings were saved from the wrecking ball by a woman named Dana Crawford and was the place to go back when I first moved to Denver.  I really enjoyed going to the festival back then, and have fond memories of going there with my sister Susan, brother-in-law George, and then wife Lisa.  The event became so popular that the merchants decided it was more of a detriment to business than a help, and so the festival moved to what is called the Ballpark  Neighborhood, between 20th and 22nd on Larimer Street.  This neighborhood used to be considered run down and dangerous before Coors Field was built to house baseball's Colorado Rockies, but now is a hip locale to hang out.  Some vestiges of the neighborhood's past still survive, however, like The Star Bar, once an infamous dive bar (see photo on the left) and is now who knows what?  I have never been in there - honest!  In any case, Oktoberfest in Denver runs both this weekend and next, so head on down and buy your $40 stein now!  Sound like a bargain to me.