This year the city of Munich celebrates its 850th Birthday. This just tickles me. Not much (i.e, sand) in my home state of Florida can even come close to being that young.
It’s only fitting that I’d give a huge ‘ein Prosit’ (toast) in honor of our well-aged beauty of a host city. Locals here recently made jokes that as we celebrate Munich’s birthday at the Oktoberfest: “Wouldn’t it be a treat to have to dish out 850 cents for a liter of beer?” Hahaha…hehe… Get ready to gulp:
Last year the price for a Maß of OK-beer was already at 7,90€. Now it’s announced that during the 16-day festival (20th Sept. – 5th Oktober 2008) the price will be between 8€ to 8,30€ per liter of beer. For Americans, that’s about 13 dollars per Maß at today’s exchange. ooh Aua!
Blame it on the price of barley, so say the breweries. Not to worry. Thrifty Oktoberfest visitors can still get their ‘drink on’ by taking advantage of the fact that in Bavaria, beer is considered a food staple. That’s right. Beer constitutes a major part of a Bavarian’s diet. Along with eggs and bread, beer is also subsidized. That means you’ll pay about 60 cents (+ a tax on the bottle) for a half liter of Augustiner Helles if you buy it at the grocery store. No, you can take your beer bottles to the fest but I’m sure you can workout some pre-game plans. There aren’t any open container laws from what I’ve observed.
So happy birthday, Munich! With the higher prices, I’m hoping during the 16 days of beer mayhem there won’t be so many drunk people peeing on your trees, gardens and subway walls. Yeah. Who am I kidding?
Wow, never heard of a bottle tax. Is that a Munich thing? We pay a deposit on lots of different kinds of bottles here in Regensburg — for both re-usable and recyclable bottles — but we always get that deposit back when the bottles come back to the store.
Aha! This post reminded me that your an ex-Sunshine Stater as well. I’m headed back on the weekend and on my music blog I’m doing this gimmicky gimmick in which I interview bands from where I am at the time. I’ve been doing Swedish bands since we’ve been here, for example. I was hoping to do some bands from Florida whilst there but am struggling to find any with even a modicum of talent. Do you know of any up and coming Floridian bands? Any friends in bands that I could check out? Shoot me a mail or leave me a comment if you know of any. A long shot, I know, but I’m really beginning to think that Florida is just a cultural wasteland.
As for youth, St. Augustine is pretty old – five hundred or so years, I think, but your point is taken.
Hey Cliff. Thanks for the catch. You’re right it is a deposit. Coming from Florida, we did’t pay a deposit on bottles. So the concept is strange to me.
In my convoluted mind, it feels like a tax. You are trained that the ‘tax’ is included in all the price tags in Germany. But then the surprise comes at the check-out when you learned your math is wrong.
Then there are other times when you are charged a 20-cent deposit on a bottle and if you brought it back some where else you get 15 cents back.
@ Chris: I just sent a message to a music buff buddy in Siesta Key. Have you checked out the WMNF 88.5 FM website. They sometimes feature local bands. I let you know.
Wow, the Christmas card I sent to yo just came back today, it says “Inconnu/Adresse insuffisante” (ha, I can guess that
Anyway, Merry Christmas inApril!