Be thankful you're not in Germany right now. For a nation that consumes almost 100 litres of beer per person per year, produces around 91 million hectolitres and churns it out across 1300 breweries, Oktoberfest 2021 – the country's most beer-centric festival – has been cancelled.
Contrary to its misleading name, the Munich-based event (which is also the world's largest folk festival) runs from mid-late September for 16-18 days, in which time a belch-inducing seven million litres of beer will be guzzled, alongside copious amounts of traditional Bavarian food. Namely, meat, because it isn't Oktoberfest without the Würstl sausage sweats.
Prone to a goblet of the golden stuff ourselves in New Zealand, we're bound to embrace Oktoberfest with as much gusto as the Europeans. Luckily for us, there are several homegrown festivities you can pull on your leather breeches for.
NZ Oktoberfest takes place over two days on the Wellington waterfront, with this year's event pushed out (but mercifully not cancelled – danke schön!) to November 26-27. Expect German-style brews alongside local craft beers and flavours signature to our nation's beer capital. Jump online and purchase tickets from oktoberfest.co.nz, with prices starting from $40pp.
