Oktoberfest Nola

I was pleasantly surprised by this. Situated in Rivertown in Kenner, this event had a quaint, albeit somewhat forced, background setting. The crowd got a little heavy for my liking, but once the rain cleared out those not truly dedicated to the experience, things got way more pleasant. Food was great, and the tables are situated closely to the stage making it very entertaining during the different performances and competitions. Food was reasonably priced but the beer price gouging did sting.

This is my second year attending Oktoberfest in Rivertown. I’m excited to hear that they’ll be opening a new location in Mid City next year.
The beer selection is great and the food is fun. Last year, the bf and I had the dinner plate special. This year we opted for pretzel dogs and flammkuchen, which is in ignorant layman’s terms… German pizza. The band performances were good fun and they had stein holding contests roughly every hour. This was a really cute family friendly event and perfect for meeting up with friends. I definitely recommend checking it out, and if you’re on the fence, Groupon usually sells discount ticket packs a few days in advance. Dirndls and lederhosen highly encouraged of course.

This was my first time attending Octoberfest in Rivertown. What a blast! There are some great German beers being served so if you are a fan of real beer this event is a must!

First, as a former member of the Haus, and with my first experiences of Oktoberfest going back almost 20 years ago, DJing with my father after the «Ooompa band» signed off for the night with their version of The Macerana, playing along while the song played on a portable stereo, I just have to say that Oktoberfest is NOT «as good as it gets». No, my friends. If it were as good as that, it would still be at the Deutsches Haus on Galvez.
With that being said, though… the new Oktoberfest at Rivertown is pretty awesome and it’s probably as close as we can get to the REAL Oktoberfest in Munich without actually flying to Bavaria or some midwestern German community that takes Oktoberfest VERY seriously and probably doesn’t get to party all year round like we do in New Orleans.
The whole event is centered around the stage where music will be played by the Haus’ band, Hoffkapelle, which is a traditional brass band that plays mostly polkas and waltz, and a couple other hired bands that seem to change each year. There are plenty of places all round the entire place to get a beer, and they’re not there to serve you bland rice beer, either. Nope. They bring in the big guns for Oktoberfest and your hardest decision to make the entire night will be which German bier are you going to drink next.
The best part of the entire event is when God (as we’ve always called him) gets on the stage to do the Shnitzelbank song. His real name is Adrian and when you see him get up there with his horned helm followed by the dude with the long beard dressed as a german bard/​peasant with his giant board, you know what’s about to happen and you know to make your way to the stage. I’m not a fan of the way they do the song these days with the modern band behind them, but in the old days, when it was just them and the brass behind them, it used to be a real hoot. Those are some seriously fond and nostalgic memories there, friends.
BUT… those days are gone and these new Oktoberfest events at Rivertown are still really fun. The parking can be a bit tricky if you get there later in the evening, but you’ll find somewhere, almost certain, if you’re not afraid to walk a little bit.
And the food? Well, the members of the haus cook this food themselves and it’s good, too. It’s mostly traditional german grub like bratwurst and kraut, but they have other stuff like porkloin and pretzels. It depends on which night you go.
Be prepared to mingle with other fellow beer drinkers and have a really good time. Members of the Haus will be volunteering during the event and can help you out with questions you may have. Although it’s not the same as the original Haus on Galvez, it IS still a really good time.

Really cool fest with good food and beer, even if one of my friends, who is actually from Germany, calls the food «Americanized German food».
This fest is always a good time with bands playing and people dancing to polka music. My favorite has to be the chicken hat that I obtained a few years ago. When you press it’s foot, it plays the chicken dance. Fun for the whole family!
The beer is a little overpriced, but you get a discount if you buy a souvenir cup. I wish the fest wasn’t all the way out in Rivertown, but I think that it’s going to be moved back to New Orleans next year.

While it takes a lot for me to go to the outskirts of the world aka Kenna’, this festival was a great family-​friendly, beer-​friendly event that you should make it a point to enjoy!
We scored big with a killer parking spot right near the entrance, and then we were given two free passes by a couple walking out. SCORE! I kid about Kenner… a little, but Rivertown is definitely worth a visit. Cute, quaint, and coming to this festival makes me want to get down here again to really check out this part of the city.
Back to the fest… this must’ve been my lucky day ’cause it was the Wiener-​Dachshund Races. Wieners everywhere! I pet as least 20 wieners. I felt bad for not bringing my own dachsie children but they’re a huge pain at festivals, and I’d rather enjoy as many festivals as possible before some day toting minions around.
My goal, after petting nearly every wiener there, was to get a beer and brat, after washing my hands… The beer selection was intimidating to someone like myself not skilled in the art of German beers, but the friendly staff asked me my preferences, let me sample a few, and hooked me up with a 16 oz $ 6 delicious Paulaner Oktoberfest Märzen. I then procured a brat with sauerkraut, and was happier than a chicken in a lederhosen.
People watching is definitely a huge benefit to this little shindig. I was extremely envious of the stein-​toting, lederhosen-​rocking individuals. I’ll have to remember for next year. I’m not huge on polka, but maybe the outfit will help.
While I drove there, after two Paulaners and a Köstritzer, my sober significant other drove us home. My suggestion is to pull straws and whoever loses gets to drive, but offer to pay for their bratwurst, weisswurst, or knackwurst for their sacrifice.

What a great festival! Sure it’s small, but the food and beer selection is great and it’s right in the heart of River Town in Kenner. Very festive with folks in German dress and German music playing for most of the day, including an awesome Polka band that was playing NIRVANA. Amazing.
I would DEFINITELY go back and try more of the food — the entrees change every weekend so you can try something new every time. AND they had a ton of great German beers from Spaten and more. HIT IT UP!

I do love a good festival. This is my first time to Oktoberfest here in New Orleans. There were several beer stands with a wide variety of beers. I had the pilsner, as it is a light and refreshing beer, generally speaking. They did have darker beers. There were a couple of wine and hard alcohol stands as well. The music was wonderful, and had people dancing. The entire three or so blocks were set up so where no vehicles were driving by. There was a very cute gift shop with your typical items and a face painter to paint the German flag on your face if you desired. It is evidently open for several weekends. I am so glad that my friends convinced me to come.

What a blast! Good food, great beer, and some of the best people watching I have been able to do in years! The 6 dollar entry fee did seem a little much, since once we got in we did have to pay for everything we wanted to do, but the rest of the prices were pretty reasonable.
The bands are a lot of fun, but holy shit, if I had the hear the chicken dance one more time I was going to suckstart a handgun.
Do recommend, will be back, do not want to hear the chicken dance song ever again in my life.

Excellent people watching platform, the kind where you find yourself questioning if some people are wearing a costume or if thats just their regular wardrobe.
You can walk around with a stein of beer and cheers people like you are Gaston from Beauty and the Beast cause, «noooo one drinks like Gaston». You might even find someone dressed as the likes of Gaston and maybe Lefou if you are lucky.
I suggest going early because I went around 7:30/8 and they were out of a lot of food. Even the roasted pecans were sold out. I would not come here for music or really anything else other than to eat, people watch, get wastey pants and eat again… in that order.
It’s something different and fun to do and its pretty much free its so cheap to get in so, why not?

This made for such an enjoyable day!!! I drank my weight in generously discounted beer and then ate a bratwurst and a turkey leg. I meant to save room for the pretzel but it came down to either the pretzel… or another beer… the beer won.
It didn’t hurt that the weather was very nice which made you want to hang out and walk around a bit in between pint selections. I think the 23oz glass for $ 9 with the purchase of an additional beer for $ 7 with each refill was the most cost effective deal for me so that’s what I went for. I think I tallied up drinking at least 69oz of beer that day (I’m a short girl… don’t judge). But I loved all 69oz of it :-D
I’ll definitely be returning next year and bringing my dog next time!

Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I enjoy beer. I try not to be too much of a snob about it, but I am most definitely a beer geek and I will correct you if you mistakenly call a lager an ale or if you (God forbid) put a lime in your Negra Modelo. My passion for beer is fairly technical, for instance, I know the actual difference between an ale and a lager (it has nothing to do with bottom fermenting vs top fermenting or temperatures). This has nothing to do with Oktoberfest, I’m just trying to explain to you how awesome I am.
Oktoberfest is all about enjoying huge quantities of high quality German beer. Sure, there’s tons of great German food and live music, but those are really ancillary to the beer drinking. The Germans essentially based their modern system of governance around drinking beer, so when Prince Ludwig married Princess Therese in 1810 and threw a huge party for the public, OF COURSE there was tons of beer drinking. Everyone seemed to think that was a good idea, so they just kept doing it year after year and now it’s the largest public beer festival in the world. Traditionally in Germany there are only 6 breweries allowed to sell beer for Oktoberfest; of these six I counted four available at our Oktoberfest, be sure to try them all: Hacker-​Pschorr, Spaten, Löwenbräu and Paulaner-​Bräu. The other two may be there as well (Augustiner-​Bräu and Staatliches Hofbräu-​München), I was just a little bit too tipsy when I decided to look in to this, so I may have missed them.
There are 3 places to get beers; the main one which is huge and you can miss it, it’s directly across the parking lot from the stage and you can get beer, wine and schnapps there. Then, looking at the stage from the main beer bar, if you go to your right you will find 2 much smaller bars, along with another wine bar and another schnapps bar. The bar in the corner with the huge Bud Lite banners has a pretty interesting selection of beers, including a couple of nice wheat beers and the Shiner Oktoberfest which I really enjoyed. Oh, and Bud Lite, if you’re in to that for some reason. There is a food cart next to the small Bud Lite bar that sells pizza and fries. The real German food is across the stage on the other side of the parking lot.
All in all I think River Town is a good place for this. It has a nice small town feel to it and there’s lots of room, where as the old place would get a little too crowded. Even with the extra room I had to take a star off because the lines get so ridiculous.

This is a very fun event punctuated by weiner dog races! My friend has a weiner dog and entered her into the race. I did not expect this event to create the excitement or the crowd that it did. There are different heats for different ages and they go on all afternoon. These dogs are seriously competitive, I am not kidding. It was really, really funny!
Other than that the beer is very tasty and very abundant, you cannot walk four feet without stumbling into a beer stand. We tried a pretzel and a braut for a snack. The pretzel was freaking delicious and chewy and everything you want a soft pretzel to be. The braut was underwhelming which did surprise me a bit. In part I think it was because it wasn’t complimented by a high-​quality bun.
It would be cool if this took place is a grassy park-​like area instead of a parking lot, but no matter, it is still quite a festive event.
The band played the chicken dance and I can tell you that I’ve never chicken danced so long in my life.
Parking was no problem. You can easily park for free in the surrounding residential areas.

It was a slightly muggy night for October. Williams Blvd was blocked off in Rivertown. A German band from Texas was playing polkas as we entered the festival grounds. We found our friends and got in line for the German meal. Dinner plate was great, plenty of choices, and good quantities. Of course, the dark German beer to wash down the cabbage roll and sausage. It was a fair size crowd for a Friday night, but you still could move around easily. Amazing how loud it was under the tent even when band wasn’t playing.

German beer? YES! I chose to go to Oktoberfest for the Second Saturday in the rotation. Having heard many Unilocalers and coworkers talk about the virtues of Oktoberfest, I figured it was time to investigate. The location in Kenner is a bit of a hike from New Orleans, but I’m not scared of these foreign lands.
After arriving it’s a $ 6 cover to get into the festival. They have multiple tents set up for beer, food, tables, and a stage set up for the band. A very laid back and family friendly atmosphere. I attended the fest in the evening, after most of the scheduled events were over, which in retrospect I would attend earlier in the day (I really wanted to see Dachshund races). Also, by 8 PM the lines to everything were obscenely long. I enjoyed the food and beer, however, my main memory of the fest was waiting in lines. Perhaps if you are a member of the haus it’s easier to circumvent these human obstacles. I will definitely go again next year, but for the afternoon.

I love Oktoberfest and I also need to disclose that I’m also a member of the Deutsches Haus. For the last weekend of September and the following three weekends in October the Deutsches Haus puts on a fantastic event full of German beer, booze, food, music, and fun! I very much miss the Oktoberfest celebrations at the old Haus which was destroyed as part of the eminent domain takeover of property for the building of the new LSU Hospital. The great news is the new Haus will be in a much better location and the plans for the new Haus look AMAZING! In the meantime Oktoberfest is being held at Rivertown in Kenner Bra…

Wiener dog races. Really, that’s all I need to say to warrant my 5 stars.
I mean think about it… wiener dog races. There were so many wiener dogs running around, they had to have different divisions.
Wiener dogs in costumes. Wiener dogs in saints jerseys. Wiener dogs in tutus.
This made my Oktoberfest experience, and I’m not exactly a dog person.
The beer and cabbage rolls were just an added bonus.

What’s not to love about Oktoberfest? Let’s see:
Great German beers? Check.
Plates of German food big enough for two people? Check
Lively music? Check
Chicken Dance? Check
Dachshund races? Check
Oktoberfest is the annual celebration of German culture and heritage as well as a fundraiser for Deutches Haus. For a small fee ($ 6) you gain access to a fun festival. Dress in lederhosen on certain weekends and you get free admission!
The food here is fantastic. Tons of great grilled German sausages along with cabbage rolls, red cabbage, German potato salad, and (my favorite) beef goulash with spatzel. Wash it down with some hefeweisen and you’re looking at a fantastic meal.
This year’s highlight for me was the day of several heats of dachshund races. Starting with the puppies and going on in older age groups, five or so adorable dachshunds at a time race across a small fenced in area to the cheers of the crowds and delicious treats waiting them at the finish line. It’s all in good fun and the dogs have a blast with all the love and attention from the crowd.
Oktoberfest runs pretty much every weekend in October, so don’t miss it.