Mandatory water conservation in Benicia doesn’t stop city’s annual Oktoberfest celebration

By John Ramos

Since Wednesday, the city of Benicia has been under a mandatory water conservation order following the failure of a main supply pipeline. Repairs are still underway, but that didn’t stop the city’s annual Oktoberfest celebration, an event that doesn’t rely much on water anyway.

The city wasn’t saying exactly what caused the water pipeline break, but on Saturday morning, the news was generally good.

“The crew completed the welding and they’re still working on final testing and repairs,” said Benicia public information officer Colette Schow. “Residents should expect to receive a notification from the city to release the 40 percent mandatory conservation probably mid next week.”

Luckily, when it came to the city’s fifth annual Oktoberfest celebration, water was about the furthest thing from people’s minds.  Kate Gogiel talked about the water shortage as she was frying up some Weinerschnitzel at the German Guys’ food booth.

“I heard about it a little bit before we came, but it’s not affecting us,” she said.  “Yeah, it’s more beer than water.”

The authentic German foods being served were a big hit, but the real star of the show was, of course, the beer.  And it too was authentic, 88 kegs of five different brews, all from the Weihenstephaner Brewery in Bavaria, which has been making beer for nearly 1,200 years.

“We’ve been lucky to have scheduled it on the exact same day that Germany’s official Oktoberfest kicks off,” said Dawson Urban, an organizer with the Benicia Chamber of Commerce. “So, if you’re in Germany today, you’re doing exactly what we’re doing!”

In Germany, Oktoberfest officially begins on Sept. 20 and goes until Oct. 5. It began more than 200 years ago to celebrate a royal wedding, but later, to avoid October rains, they moved most of it up to September. In Benicia, the music and dancing were also classic Oktoberfest, with long tables set up under a tent, just like the massive beer halls in Munich.

“It feels just like this, with the tables and all the people drinking, having a good time. It’s a community event and it feels just like this,” said one Benicia resident who visited the celebration in Munich in 2015. He remembers sitting in the huge Lowenbrau tent as the normally no-nonsense Germans began standing up on the tables to drink.

“And everybody cheers them on and hopefully they finish their whole pint,” he said, pulling up a video on his phone. “Well, this lady stood up in 2015 and this is what happened. Poured it all over her head. She never drank a single bit of it, but everybody cheered. It was great and I’m just glad I got the whole event on video.”

In Benicia, it was a bit more relaxed with people savoring typical German foods like sauerkraut, schnitzel and gravy.  And one curious dish is sausage in a red curry, known as “currywurst.”  Adrian Gogiel, with The German Guys, said it may not be traditional, but it sure is popular.

“If you go to Berlin, the capital of Germany,’ he said, “on every single corner is currywurst.  It’s like the tacos here…this is our tacos!”

And at the booth next door was One House Bakery, where, along with the pretzels and apple strudel, co-owner Hannalee Pervan was serving up another Teutonic treat.

“So, these are the gingerbread hearts,” she said. “Essentially, at the beginning of every Oktoberfest, you go and get your loved one a heart and you put it around their neck.  They said if you’re wearing a heart, it signifies that somebody loves you. You don’t see that a lot in the States, but we definitely wanted to bring that tradition, make it authentic.”

Events like Oktoberfest take a year to plan, and nobody could have foreseen that it would fall on a day when the entire city was being asked to limit its consumption of water. But then again, maybe that was the perfect day for it to happen.