UPDATE: 2011 Wurstfest is February 12-13!
Giant Spaten banners fluttered in the breeze outside the Oktoberfest Community Building (500 S Wilco Hwy) in Mount Angel Saturday afternoon. The melodic aspirations of an amplified accordion greeted us as we stepped from the car. The scent of sausage and sauerkraut beckoned.
In the past if you found yourself craving Bavarian-style revelry in the dead of winter, you were out of luck. But those Oktoberfest-minded geniuses in Mount Angel came up with a remedy this year: Wurstfest, a celebration of the mighty German (wurst) sausage.
In the few hours we were there the requisitely lederhosen-clad Greg Meier Alpine Quartet provided the requisite polka music.
At 3pm, after eine, zwei, drei biere, we joined everyone in the beer hall to sing happy birthday to Oregon, in English and then in German.
We tried the fittingly famous frickadelwurst, with sauerkraut and onions!
What the heck is frickadelwurst?
Besides fun to say, Mount Angel Sausage Company‘s fricadelwurst is a spicy chicken sausage with many different spices that create a medley of different delicious flavors that will explode in your mouth.
Indeed.
The beer was fantastic; Spaten’s Premium Helles, Optimator, Helles Bock, Pilsner, and Franziskaner Hefeweizen were available. The glühwein was good; almost as good as mine.
This was the inaugural Mount Angel Wurstfest. From what I saw, it was clearly a success.
Let’s hope it becomes an annual tradition.
Photos courtesy of Mile73.com‘s Heather. Read her blog entry, I Went To A Sausage Fest, to learn about the profane wood carver, and to see video footage of the singing of Zum Geburtstag liebes Oregon.
… and a good time was had by all!
I love Mt. Angel. After the fest, we went up to the Abby for a lil’bit religion. That place still gives me the creeps. But a great view from up there.
~n
Was it loud at the wurstfest?
Nick – We high tailed it back to Portland when we left; we had a date at the Hillsdale Brewfest. It was great to hang out with y’all though!
n – It wasn’t too loud.
Was it as loud as at the Oktoberfest?
And how as the glass, I mean the one gotten with the 10 bucks admission fee?
n – I’ve not been to the Mount Angel Oktoberfest, but the Wurstfest didn’t seem too loud. The glass is pretty cool. There were several choices; a wine glass, a pint glass, or two types of big glass mugs.
I thought the glasses they gave out with admission were great–mine was a tall unusual-looking clear glass beer stein, kind of fluted or belled-out towards the top, with a cool Spaten bock bier logo screenprinted on it with the traditional goat in the design, always associated with bock beers–I got one of the last of that kind. They also had a straight-sided faceted stein, and the more British-looking rounded faceted stein, both with the Spaten red spade design on them, then of course also a wine glass for the non-beer-inclined. All were clear glass, with the logo designs screenprinted. Not knowing for sure what the attendance would be at this first Wurstfest, they ran out of the 1500 glasses they had ordered around the end of the first day of the event, and therefore ended up reducing admission price on the second day of the event. Much fun was had by all! Come again next year!
And don’t forget the lederhosen! http://www.touchofbavaria.com. You can also visit us if in Mt. Angel at 1270 E. College st.