The real Oktoberfest is the friends we made along the way
I tried to go to Oktoberfest. Instead I got Kitchener's everyday German experience
I screwed up. Badly. I planned to go to Kitchener’s Oktoberfest for the first time this fall. I even made a bit of a field trip out of it. Floated the idea to some friends, all but one of them had something better to do. So at least I had some company lined up. All I had to do was figure out when the thing started. Alas, I failed.
Now, in my defense, anyone could have made this mistake. I checked the website to see if there was anything scheduled for September 28th. Sure enough, there was an event listed. That’s all I needed. So I hopped on the Go Train, and I was there in under two hours.1 Things were looking good.
As we walked down the rolling hills behind a strip mall on the east side of Kitchener, I had my doubts. Was this pastoral setting going to reveal to me a rollicking beer swilling festival filled with vaguely Germanic men huffing down sausages and clinking steins? I had my doubts.
My doubts were proven correct, albeit for the wrong reason. As we reached the bottom of the hill, there were indeed festival grounds. All the ingredients for a heart palpitatingly good time. Only, there weren’t any people. What gives?
I stood in disbelief, looking out into the empty grounds. A good time was about to be had by all. Just not yet. Why, though? I looked at the event invitation. September 23-30 (all day). It was September 28th. I got that part right. It seems that Kitchener Oktoberfest people and I have a different definition of all day. Mine includes 2:30pm on a Thursday. Apparently theirs does not.
I have no doubt that a few hours hence, good times were had. Lederhosen as far as the eye can see, and enough bratwurst and sauerkraut to pack Southern Ontario’s cardiac units. Alas, that was for other men. I had an agenda. I can’t serve you, my dear readers, while sitting around a parking lot all day waiting for the action. The largest Bavarian festival in North America would have to wait for another time. My associate and I had some exploring to do.
I wasn’t new to Kitchener. I lived in Waterloo for a year during grad school. But despite the fact that the two cities are glued together, I didn’t make it down King Street to Kitchener all that often. Kitchener circa 2007 wasn’t the most happening place. I was living on a student budget, and I had all I needed in Uptown Waterloo. So I only really ever made it down to visit an old used book store and to catch the Greyhound to Toronto (back when it existed). Despite my former proximity, Kitchener was a bit of a black box to me outside of the King Street corridor.
A lot has changed in Kitchener-Waterloo since I left. There has been a lot of development in both cities, and there is a lot more energy now. I’ll get into this more in a future post more focused on Waterloo. But what has remained the same - since well before I ever stepped foot there, is the German influence.
Before Kitchener was Kitchener, it was Berlin. Back in 1916, the heavily German town was confronted with a vexing problem: the Kaiser. It was war time, and the German’s were on the other side. So the city held a referendum on May 19th, 1916, and 51.32% of residents decided it was time for a new, more geopolitically expedient name. Who better to name the City after than the face of the British war effort, Horatio Herbert Kitchener. Thus, this deeply German town became known as Kitchener.
We didn’t have to go far to see the German influence. It wasn’t my first time back in Kitchener since I returned to Ontario in 2020. But this time, I had my eyes open for signs of all things German. There were signs of Oktoberfest coming, sure. But there were also permanent fixtures.
For instance, the Schneider Haus National Historic Site, which hosts the oldest building in Kitchener. The site was settled and developed by Pennsylvania Mennonite Germans. It still stands as a marker of the City’s German heritage.
If the name Schneider sounds familiar, it’s because it shares the name of one of the Kitchener’s longest standing businesses, Schneiders.2 Yes, that Schneiders. If you grew up in Canada, you’re almost certainly familiar with Schneiders’ deli meats. It might well be the most recognizable business of German descent in Canada.
While all the Germanic inflections were welcome, and interesting, there was something missing. I came to Kitchener for beer and sausages, after all. German beer and sausages. Fortunately, many of the local breweries were very much in the Oktoberfest spirit. Most places seemed to have one or two Oktoberfests on tap.3 As we sat enjoying some great local beer, I lamented my lack of sausages. Upon hearing of my plight, the bartender at one of Kitchener’s finest drinking establishments, Short Finger Brewing, informed me that there was an old school German food hall not far away. So off we went.
Now, reader. I can not express how unprepared I was for this experience. My expectations weren’t high. And I was perfectly willing to eat whatever microwaved sausage I could get my hands on. We were in an industrial area in the south end of town. I was expecting a dank beer hall in a basement somewhere. It wasn’t that.
Forgive the terrible photo. It was late, the lighting was bad. I’m a bit embarrassed to post this. But, well, look at that place! It’s not a restaurant. It’s a palace! A sausage palace, no less! This, my friends, is what life is about.
It was a bit of a surreal scene. It wasn’t empty. There were some guest who appeared to be regulars. Family gatherings, some men at the bar. But it was clearly well under capacity (mere days later I saw pictures from this very establishment on social media, packed to the gills with people more organized than I).
While the Thursday night atmosphere wasn’t necessarily what I made the trip out for, the food made it all worth it. They had all the classics. Sausages, cabbage rolls, schnitzel. Did I mention sausages? And - I kid you not - this magnificent feast was fourteen Canadian dollars. Fourteen! You can’t get a Big Mac combo for that! Not regular price, anyways. This might not have been the best meal of my life. But it was definitely among the most satisfying. Thanks, Germany!
Look, I respect you all too much to spin this all as some sort of happy accident, where I learned more about Kitchener’s German heritage by missing out on Oktoberfest. Actually, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Because I did! It’s one thing to trot out the brats and lagers once a year. It’s another thing to have fine establishments like this running all year long.
The following week, the Prime Minister showed up for Oktoberfest. Unlike SteveCo, the Prime Minister’s office has staff to sort out these details. They figured out all the logistics, and got the PM to Kitchener in time for the ceremonial tapping of the keg. While I wasn’t there to witness it, the thought conjured up an image. Not so much of Justin Trudeau pounding beers, but of how it would look to Canadians in 1916 - or 1939. Here is the Prime Minister of Canada, leaders of an allied power, surrounded by lederhosen and polka, celebrating German traditions and culture. They’d think that we lost the war or something. But, here we are all these years later, leaning-in to the German heritage residents once saw fit to obscure.
This also made me think of a recent controversy in Brampton. Someone shared a video from a high school of what I assume was Bhangra dancing.4 The poster was appalled that this is what Canada looks like now. It was the kind of fleeting Twitter controversy that gets supplanted five minutes later by the next dumb thing. But it stuck with me. Not because it was insightful, but because I had Oktoberfest on my mind.
A hundred years ago it would be unthinkable that the Prime Minister would travel to Kitchener to celebrate German heritage.5 Maybe in 50 years, or a hundred, people will flock to Brampton for an annual cricket match or cultural ceremony that no one outside of the South Asian community knows about right now. Even as the demographics of the community change, as they always do, the dominant culture today will leave behind artifacts, history, traditions. Who knows what future generations will celebrate. Times change, and so do we.
Canadian history is, to a large extent, the story of waves of immigration. The French and English, who settled Upper Canada. The Germans who populated swaths of Southwestern Ontario. The Ukrainians who settled the West. History is always unfolding right in front of us. Being a young land means traditions are constantly emerging right in front of our eyes. This is the new world - we don’t have fixed traditions going back hundreds of years. We take the best of the world and make it our own. That’s something to celebrate. Prost!
This was my third experience taking GO from Union to Kitchener. Each time it has been within two minutes of scheduled arrival times in each direction.
I haven’t attempted to ascertain whether there is a common lineage. If you happen to know, I’d be curious to hear about it!
The “Oktoberfest” beer label is somewhat ambiguous. Historically, Oktoberfest beers were dark lagers. At the end of the season the surplus malt was roasted well and used for beer. Over time Oktoberfest beers became lighter and lighter, now represented primarily by straw coloured lagers. Interestingly, North America has bucked this trend. Oktoberfest branded beers from North American craft breweries are often maltier styles like feistbeers and slightly darker, caramel inflected Märzens (I love both, especially Märzens). [Apologies in advance to my brewing friends for almost certainly botching this explanation.]
I don’t know who the person was, and am not going to bother tracking down the tweet. You’re probably better off not seeing it.
Kitchener Oktoberfest wasn’t founded until 1969, the year after the first Prime Minister Trudeau rose to power.
Kitchener has long been a place of derision for me. A Western abomination in the East, like Moncton or Gander. Ugly, dull, post-war. Not nearly as interesting as its neighbours. Perhaps the only thing that would get me to return to it is checking out Oktoberfest (good to know it starts late). But I liked this post because it’s a reminder that even places urbanists like myself love to sneer at have value, character, community, and significance in some way. It’s very cool that the German heritage of the region lives on in an every day sense and it’s awesome you were able to stumble onto it during what could’ve just been a disappointing trip.