Oktoberfest is a 16 day festival held each year in Munich Bavaria Germany at the town's ‘medow’ and festival grounds called the ‘Theresienwiese,’ named after Princess Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen the wife of Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) in whose honor the first Oktoberfest, on October 12, 1810, was originaly held. It is the world’s largest fair and Munich’s most famous event. Since 1950, there has been a traditional festival opening: A twelve gun salute and the ceremonial tapping of the first keg of Oktoberfest beer at 12 noon by the current Mayor of Munich with the cry "O'zapft is!" ("It's tapped!" in the Austro-Bavarian dialect) begin the Oktoberfest each year.

The beers (Oktoberfestbiers) that have been served at the event in Munich since 1818 are supplied by only 6 breweries. These are known as the Big Six: Spaten, Löwenbräu, Augustiner, Hofbräu, Paulaner and Hacker-Pschorr. Traditionally Oktoberfestbiers were the lagers of around 5.5 to 6% abv called Märzen - brewed in March and allowed to ferment slowly during the summer months. Originally these would have been dark lagers, but from 1872 a strong March brewed version of an amber-red Vienna lager made by Josef Sedlmayr became the favorite Oktoberfestbier. Visitors to the modern day Oktoberfest also eat huge amounts of food, most of it traditional hearty fare such as sausage, hendl (chicken), käsespätzle (cheese noodles), and sauerkraut, along with such Bavarian delicacies as roast Pig Knuckles and Whole roasted Cows.

We followed this great race on our ceiling
with The Peloton of Swallows.
Stop by for a beer, catch up on the Tour
and watch the birds!

You may enjoy these superb photographs from Graham Watson at the scene of this 96th Tour de France and read complete reports on CyclingNews, Versus and Twitter.

The birds represent the cyclists
and wear the colors of the Tour:

Yellow: Race Leader
Green: Sprint Leader
Red & White Polka-Dot: King of the Mountains
White: Best Young Rider
Rainbow Jersey: World Champion
Red Wing-tips: Most Aggressive Rider
Red Tail-feathers: Last Place

May 15th 2009! This is the anniversary of the day the Suppenküche began. This year, to celebrate the cooking of so much soup, and to welcome the next 16, we threw a costume ball to honor the Gnomes with a royal (G)night. Our sweet sixteen party was wonderful. Thank you. Click the image above to see some of it.

We also have the annual, Kunstplatz designed, Ape Do Good printed, limited edition T-shirts, Milk Fed Press printed coasters and this year a special bonus item (it's a Bandanna). All of it, plus food and beer, is available at Suppenküche. See you here.

Map

Suppenküche

525 Laguna St. San Francisco CA 94102
(at the corner of Hayes and Laguna)

Art place

At Suppenküche we celebrate our Birthday (in the middle of May) and Oktoberfest (at the end of September) by throwing a party, making designs, decorating for the season, printing special T-shirts with our friends at Ape Do Good, as well as coasters with Milk Fed Press -- for everyone to wear and enjoy. We also created a set of three (3) different t-shirts for Suppenküche Oktoberfest 2009 -- they are still available at the restaurant. Join the mailing list for more information like this. Click the image above to look at some of the random Kunstgeschichte (Art History) of the Suppenküche.

© Suppenküche
This Suppenküche site was made by Bitography
The Original Photography is by Sven Wiederholt
The Graphic Design of the Suppenküche is by Matt Hulme.