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October 12-13, 2007
Our 2nd Annual OktoberFest was a great
success, thanks to the tireless efforts of a great crew of
volunteers. This event would not have been possible
without the support of many sponsors, including those who
donated cash, materials, raffle prizes, silent auction items,
and other goods and services. |
| These are just a few of the
hundreds of great photos taken by LHS volunteer extraordinaire,
Peggy Smith of CyberWings, Inc. Click here to see more
photos. |
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| Click here to see
more great photos. |
Lancaster OktoberFest 2007 was
Sponsored By:
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Preview Party - Friday, October 12th - 6:30-9:30 PM
Ticket price of only $35 per person includes
a full meal plus three coupons for the beverages of your
choice. You'll get to take part in the Opening Ceremonies,
which will include a procession through the Rose Garden,
followed by the tapping of the first keg. This year,
Lancaster Mayor Joe Tillotson will do the honors and declare the
festival open. Throughout the evening you'll enjoy the
sounds of polka and other traditional German music performed by
the president of the Dallas club of the National
Accordion Association. And if you don't already know
how to polka - not to worry - we'll have free polka lessons!
Traditional German food included:
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Bratwurst from Kuby's
Sausage House in Dallas. We boil our brats in beer
first, then lightly roast them on the outdoor grill on-site
Friday night. Yummm!!! |
| German Potato Salad made fresh by
Kale's Kitchen on Lancaster's Historic Town Square |
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Red cabbage, straight from German Deli |
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Sauerkraut, cooked in wine |
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Apple strudel, home-made by the ladies of
the Altar Society at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church |
| German beers
included: |
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Warsteiner Premium Verum, a pale golden pilsner
style beer
Warsteiner Premium Dunkel, a traditional German dark
brown lager
Click here
to visit the Warsteiner-USA website, where you
can read more about these and other beers from this
centuries-old brewery in north-central Germany. |
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Oktoberfest Beer
The Taste Tests are finished and the
decision has been made - drum roll please. This
year, we will feature Hacker-Pschorr
Oktoberfest beer. Hacker Pschorr has been
brewed in Munich since 1417, and their brewing process
has remained virtually unchanged for over 580 years.
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Hefe-Weizen
Split Decision - We'll follow our own tradition
from last year PLUS the tradition of Munich's
Oktoberfest by serving Paulaner's
Hefe-Weizen on tap. But we couldn't pass up the
opportunity to try something new, so we'll also serve Konig Ludwig Weiss
Bier in bottles. This Royal Bavarian wheat beer is brewed by
the Kaltenberg Castle Brewery in Germany.
Kaltenberg Castle is the residence of Prince Luitpold of
Bavaria, who is of the House of Wittelsbach - a family
that knows something about beer. Countless
generations of this royal family have been brewing beer
since 1260, and it was a member of this family that
instituted Germany's famous Reinheitsgebot (Purity Law)
in 1516. We also have the House of Wittelsbach to
thank for starting the Oktoberfest tradition as they
celebrated the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig to
Princess Therese of Bavaria in 1810..
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Märzen Beer
In addition to these fine German beers, we'll be serving MKT Märzen
beer, which is being brewed exclusively for our event by
award-winning home brewer Charlie Walker of The
North Texas Home Brewers Association.
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Wines included:
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Müller-Thurgau, being fermented and
bottled at Swirll
(Dallas' Downtown Winery) especially for our event. |
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Katy Krush-Green Apple Riesling, also being
fermented and bottled at Swirll just for us. |
| Katy Kiss, a white zinfandel kissed
with strawberries, being fermented and bottled at The
Winery in Grand Prairie just for us. |
Click here to
jump down the page to see photos of our bottling party at
Swirll.
For those preferring a non-alcoholic
beverage, a new addition to our menu this year will be Thomas
Kemper Root Beer on tap. This tasty treat was
first brewed as an alternative to beer at an Oktoberfest event
on Bainbridge Island, Washington, so it's sure to be the perfect
complement for our food.
For only $400 you can reserve a table
for 10 people. You'll get preferred seating along with a
special bonus: a bottle of your choice of our custom
wines. According to TABC laws, you must consume the wine
at OktoberFest, which of course won't be difficult, and then
you'll have the bottle with our custom label as a souvenir of
the evening. |
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Public Celebration - Saturday, October 13th - 11:30 AM-9:30
PM
We'll have the same delicious food on Saturday, available as
a lunch plate (1 sausage with potato salad, red cabbage, and
sauerkraut) or dinner plate (2 sausages plus the same
sides). In addition, we'll offer brats on a stick, brats
on a bun, hot dogs for the kids, fresh hot pretzels, and apple
strudel à la carte.
From 11:30 AM to 5:00 PM, we'll offer a wealth of activities just
for kids, including:
| Bounce House |
| 18' Inflatable Slide |
| Kiddie Train Rides |
| Face-Painting |
| Lebkuchen Decorating - This German tradition gives
children of all ages the opportunity to decorate a
gingerbread cookie. Students and instructors from Lancaster
High School's Culinary Arts program will supervise and
assist. |
| Weiner Dog Contest - Bring your dachshund on a leash and
convince the judges that yours is the cutest, smartest, most
amazing dog ever. |
Of special interest for the adults:
| Two live performances by the Texanischer
Schuhplattler Verein, a dance club whose members
specialize in Bavarian and Tyrolean dances. Performances will be at 5 PM and 6:30 PM. |
| Famed potter and clay sculptor Randy
Brodnax will be on-hand with his pottery wheel, and his
students from Cedar
Valley College will be exhibiting beer steins they made
in class. |
| We'll have a Beer Stein Contest, with judging at
approximately 8:00 PM. Bring your favorite stein and
be prepared to tell us how it came to be in your
possession. Prizes will be awarded in a variety of
categories at the judges' discretion. |
| Live music by Jake & the Bavarian Woodchoppers from
7:00 - 9:00 PM. |
| Enjoy the Chicken Dance every hour! Just in case
you're not familiar with this crowd favorite, click here
to listen. |
| Arts & Crafts Vendors will be offering their
wares. Might be time to start your holiday shopping! |
| Raffle Drawing will happen near the end of the evening,
around 9:00 PM. We are collecting lots of great
prizes, including merchandise and gift certificates from
local shops and restaurants. The Grand Prize is a gift
certificate for a wine-tasting party at Swirll,
Dallas' Downtown Winery. |
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Next OktoberFest
Committee Meeting - Sunday, September 23rd, 5 PM at the MKT
Depot
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Pat Mungenast fills the first few bottles
of wine.
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On September 11th, several members of
your OktoberFest committee went to Swirll,
Dallas Downtown Winery, to bottle two batches of wine
that were custom-blended just for us.
We had lots of fun, the bottles look
beautiful, and most importantly, the wines both taste
delicious. They're sure to be big hits at
OktoberFest!
All Swirll photos courtesy of Peggy
Smith, Cyber Wings, Inc. |
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Randy Rostad puts a cork in
it....literally!
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Rhonda Cain seals in all that great taste
with a special device that shrink-wraps the seal over
the cork.
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Isn't that a beautiful display?
Many thanks to Peggy Smith for designing and printing
our labels. |
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If you've been keeping up with our news,
you probably think serving on the OktoberFest committee is all fun
and games. Not so! Members of the committee
have spent countless hours in hard, back-breaking manual
labor to get the MKT Depot and Rose Garden looking good
for OktoberFest. Over two Saturdays, volunteers
unloaded and spread ELEVEN yards of mulch, re-finished
TEN park benches, planted at least SIX new rose bushes,
and trimmed countless others.
All Rose Garden photos courtesy of Peggy Smith,
Cyber Wings, Inc.
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A really big THANK YOU!!! goes out to
Frank Mejia and Mejia Enterprises for building new
arbors to replace old ones that were literally falling
apart.
At left, a new arbor is lowered
into place. Above, LHS President Susan Anderson
gets a hug from Frank Mejia. |
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Carol Strain-Burk and Kyle Wright are all
smiles as work gets underway at the Rose Garden.
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For two Saturdays in a row, Kyle Wright
and his crew from Cowboy
Fence & Iron Company have been working hard to
install a custom- fabricated powder-coated steel fence
to replace the old wooden fence that was in such poor
shape.
This project would not have been possible without the
generous donations and hard work of many people:
| Ted Burk, who offered to match funds raised in a
fence-building fund drive so we could get this
project done in time for OktoberFest. |
| Carol Strain-Burk, Dee Hinkle, and Marge
Tillotson, who made numerous telephone calls to
solicit additional donations for the
fence. |
| Members and friends of LHS who made donations. |
| And last but certainly not least, Kyle &
Cheryl Wright, who underwrote a portion of the cost
to make this project feasible. |
The fence is not quite complete yet, but when it is,
we'll add a new photo here. In the meantime, drive
by to see the beautiful new fence for yourself. |
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Six of us went to WestFest
over the Labor Day week-end - always doing more research!
We had a great time and will post a photo soon.
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Photo courtesy of the Bavarian Grill
website
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Four of your dedicated OktoberFest
committee members plus two of our friends visited the Bavarian
Grill in Plano on Saturday night, August 11th.
We were invited to join the Texanischer
Schuhplattler Verein at their monthly "Bayern
Abend" - "Bavarian Evening". We
enjoyed good German food and libations, great music
performed by Kleine
Blasmusik, and all-around Gemütlichkeit.
Sadly, we forgot to take the camera along, so we don't
have any of our own photos to show off. But a good
time was had by all! |
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Your OktoberFest committee was hard at work
again on Saturday, July 21st! This time, we visited The
Winery in Grand Prairie, where we sampled red and blush
wines, looking to round out our selection of custom wines for
OktoberFest. We opted for one of their trademarked
"Fruit-Kissed Wines," a Strawberry White Zinfandel
called "KissZin" which should complement our menu
nicely..
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Eight of your dedicated volunteers took a
field trip on July 11th to Swirll,
Dallas' Downtown Winery. Peggy and Louis Davion own and
operate this fabulous place, which specializes in custom
wine-making. Peggy was our hostess for the evening,
guiding us in selecting wines that would pair well with our
OktoberFest menu. We tasted whites, reds, and dessert
wines, and the committee was unanimous in our decision to have
two wines made for our event. According to reliable
sources, the Müller-Thurgau grape is one of the most widely
cultivated grapes in Germany. Peggy assures us that the
Müller-Thurgau wine being fermented for our OktoberFest will be
crisp, with a floral note, vibrant with fruity characteristics,
and a touch of sweetness. We also selected a lighter wine
called Krush-Green Apple Riesling. The Riesling grape is
another of Germany's leading grapes, and its use goes back at
least as far as 1435. For our Krush wine, the high acidity
of the Riesling grape is accented by the fresh, fruity green
apple, and the result is a wine that is crisp and cool.
Our thanks to Peggy Davion for the
delightful evening and education, and also for the photo above.
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Check out our upcoming ad in
the October issue of Texas Highways, the Travel Magazine of Texas.
Postscript Format
PDF Format |
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