Oktoberfest-Zinzinnati, which starts tonight, (Friday, September 21) and runs until Sunday (September 23) is the second-largest Oktoberfest celebration in the world. Only Munich’s Oktoberfest is bigger. Last year, half-a-million revellers attended.
To get your head around the scale of Cincinnati’s event, here are some fun facts about the amount of beer and food consumed each year:
87,000 metts, more than eight miles long when lined up end-to-end
80,500 bratwurst, the length of 29 Empire State Buildings
64,000 sauerkraut balls, the length of 15 American Football fields
56,000 sausages, five miles long when lined up end-to-end
Five tons of potato pancakes, the weight of an average elephant
23,000 soft pretzels, or about 27 Eiffel Towers in length
20,000 cream puffs, as long as eight Boeing 747s
16,000 strudel, almost the length of a 5K race
1.3 tons of jumbo pickles, the weight of a small truck
Almost two tons of sauerkraut, equivalent to the weight of a great white shark
One ton of German potato salad, close to the weight of a buffalo
More than 1,300 barrels of beer are consumed each year at Oktoberfest. This is the approximate capacity of a small microbrewery. Each year, Oktoberfest includes approximately 40 styles of brew on tap from brewers such as Samuel Adams, Spaten, Erdinger, Beck’s and Christian Moerlein.
At the World Bratwurst Eating Championship at Oktoberfest-Zinzinnati last year, Joey “Jaws” Chestnut, the top-ranked competitive eater in the world, consumed 35 bratwurst in 10 minutes. In total, 10 contestants ate a total of 170 bratwurst.
