Oktoberfest

I love Oktoberfest on the docks. I met my fiancé here 5 years ago so it holds a lil special place in my heart. Plus I LOVE BEER! Especially German beer. The atmosphere is always electric and the food is tasty. the only down side is the price. Its quite overpriced but worth it for a good day out.

So made it back after my first visit was thwarted by a long Q. Arrived at 5pm and we queued for 15 min before finally getting in. The place was already packed so I can only imagine how busy it would be later.
12 euro for a ltr of beer and 5 euro deposit for your plastic glass which is returned upon presenting your token once done.
How could they improve?
— Get organised. With the hordes of thirsty beer guzzling customers they need to get the beer flowing better.
— 5 euro deposit for a plastic glass? Charge 5 euro upfront or set up a return station as you leave because as things stand it’s not working
— Layout is not great and doesn’t lend itself to a flow of traffic. I would suggest they look at how the food and beer stations are positioned.
Finally it’s not very German nor does it even get close to representing a beer garden experience. The music isn’t reflective and at 5pm there were already people who were «two sheets to the wind»
Glad I went but in its current format I doubt I’d go back on 2016

Honestly? So disappointing! It just seemed chaotic. We were lucky in that we queued for only about 25 minutes to get in but it was early enough on a Saturday evening.
Then we got in and there’s no structure to the queues at the bars. When you get to the bar a litre of beer cost € 12 plus € 5 deposit for a plastic stein. You have to keep old of the token and the stein to ensure you get your deposit back. You queue at the same bar to return your glass.
Didn’t have food here as we had a table booked for later that evening but it smelled pretty good.
Seemed like we left just as it was starting to get kind of messy which is a shame as there were quite a few families with young children there. Not exactly a child friendly event. I wonder if it would be better to move it to somewhere like the Phoenix Park and have it better spaced out…
Also just a personal view but it’s quite a shame that they allow smoking. It’s not something I miss in our bars.

Just reviewing the food here. I have been before in previous years for the beer but haven’t made it this year. And being honest I don’t miss it much! Overpriced and a very pale impersonation of an actual German style beer festival. I was at a great little hob festival in a wee place in Belgium called Poperinge and it was 10 times the fun that Dublins one is.
The food though. I went for the wurst with fried onions and a sweet mustard topping and shared some sauteed potatoes with a mate. Filling and pretty tasty. Followed this the the doughballs. And again while tasty, they felt like they had been sitting out for quite a while.
So this place is a yearly tradition that I’ll probably not bother to keep any longer!

I love all things German so always make an effort to get down to Oktoberfest and soak up a bit of the atmosphere… except this year there was a bit more of an ‘Irish Festival’ vibe, not exactly what I was looking for!
We got down there around half six on a Saturday and didn’t have to queue to get in. We also got seats at the edge of one of the tables really quickly, which was handy as it would have been awkward standing with the volume of people moving through.
We got the obligatory pints of Erdinger which were fine, but at € 6.50 a pop you would expect them to be full, which they weren’t. I then went in search of some proper German Bratwurst. A lot of the stalls were selling hot dogs with frankfurters but if you want a proper bratwurst there’s one stall beside the entrance (looks like a wooden cabin) and you can get a really tasty hot dog here for € 5.50, not bad given the size of the portion. They also had some other dishes here like fried potatoes with saurkraut and these looked really good too. After a while we tried some gourmet popcorn with melted marshmallow (€ 4) and a cinnamon pretzel (€ 2.50) from two of the stalls and both were really tasty.
We hung around for a couple of hours but at around half nine we decided to move on as things were getting a bit messy. While I love the food and drink associated with Oktoberfest, I’m not really a fan of the ‘Irish Festival’ vibe and that’s what was on offer down here, becoming progressively more present as the night went on. Also, we saw three ambulances arrive during our time there and given the fact thay we were down there quite early this was quite concerning. I will go back to Oktoberfest next year but I’ll be heading down early and leaving early!