Gay times at Munich's Oktoberfest

[Christa]

Munich's annual beer festival got underway to the collective clinking of tankards on Saturday. But did you know that gay Bierfest started on Sunday?

"Gay Days" at the Oktoberfest have their origins in the 1970s when the Munich Lowenclub (Lions Club), a gay fetish society whose members are confusingly known as "bears", booked the balcony in the Bräurosl tent. The owners expected a football club, and were taken aback when a group of gay men turned up. But the beer drinkers proved to be big-spending revellers, and, according to the waitresses, were more pleasant to deal with than other festival-goers. Now Gay Days is the second biggest gay event in Munich after the Christopher Street Day parade, and as many as 8,000 mostly gay men and some women fill the tent, although straight people are also welcome.

The first event takes place in the Bräurosl tent on the first Sunday. (Although you'll have missed that this year, there are plenty of other pink parties throughout the three-week long festival. A brass band plays largely traditional Bavarian songs (a bylaw has made this a legal requirement) and the benchfuls of beer-swilling, thigh-slapping revellers get down to some serious singing. A favourite yodel is: "Servus, Gruezi und Hallo" (Greetings, God bless you and hello), which is usually delivered by the German pop-folk singer Maria Helsig. The waiters and waitresses join in with karaoke sessions and two of the band members carry off Robbie Williams and Tina Turner impressions to huge appreciation.

It's certainly a different way to experience the fun of the fair. "The Gay Days visitors are really no different to other Oktoberfest revellers," said Claudia, a long-time waitress in the Bräurosl. "Except for the fact that they do give us better tips and they are less likely to throw beer glasses at each other when the evening gets going."

• This year's Oktoberfest runs from 19 Sept to 4 Oct.




http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/blog/2009/sep/22/oktoberfest-gay-munich



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[MNBrewer]

1. I'll drink to that!

Prosit!!!

:beer:

[donco6]

2. Funny and fun.

Sounds like they have a great time. And people want to be where they are! Ha! Just follow the gays to the best parties.