New Oktoberfest tent – Never look a gift horse in the mouth

Yesterday was the moment of truth. After months of speculation, the Munich city council passed what, for Oktoberfest-fans, its undoubtedly its most important motion of the year: and now we know who will follow the disgraced tax criminal Sepp Krätz as the proud possessor of a permit to open up a tent on the site of the iconic Hippodrom.

The lucky gentleman is one Siegfried Able, a very (excuse the puns) able and reputable restaurant and beer tent professional who is no stranger to the Oktoberfest. He and his wife started selling nuts, sweets, and sustaining suckling pig rolls there in 1994, and have been running a small-scale, food-orientated tent since 2008 in the form of Kalbskuchl.

At first glance, it’s harder to think of anyone better placed to take on the considerable responsibility of one of the limited, large-scale beer-tents that are the defining points of the Oktoberfest. There something nice about the idea of someone starting with chestnuts and ending up with millions – a kind of American “rags to riches” story – and so there will no doubt be plenty of people who will ignore the cries of foul play coming from the established Oktoberfest publicans like Schottenhamel and Kuffler: after all, these guys already have huge Wiesn operations turning over millions a year – give the little guy a chance!

Nonetheless, the fact remains that, to most observers, almost all of the current Oktoberfest licence-holders should – by the measures set by the city council’s committee – have been placed before the comparative newcomer. Whether it looks like sour grapes on the part of the Schottenhamels and Kufflers or not, they have every right to point to the fact that the process the city uses to evaluate applications for beer tent licences is lacking in transparency and seems contradictory.

For those of us visiting the Oktoberfest from abroad, of course, all of this is of secondary interest: the main tents for English-speakers are the Hofbräuhaus and a few other big ones – and Munich will be at the seaside before they are subject to a change of ownership! Furthermore, Hippodrom was always so exclusive and reserved for people known in Munich that it was of no interest to even your average German Oktoberfest-goer, let alone those of us not lucky enough to live there.

So we’ll be interested to see what becomes of the Hippodrom. Able’s concept is called “Marstall”, which means royal stables and comes from the same route as the English words mare and stall. Hippodrom is of course from the Ancient Greek for horse racecourse – and indeed housed horse races until the 1970s, when the equine gave way to the WAG-ine – so Able is clearly aware of tradition. There’s not much more to be said yet about precisely what kind of focus he’ll place, but – as the old saying goes – never look a gift horse in the mouth! It’s a new Oktoberfest tent, so we’ll give it a whack when we’re over this year. If they let us in, of course.