Tennessee Volksfest

great beer and good pretzels… yep, im in!

Man, the people that put this on know what’s up.
First of all, it was really easy to get there and get set up. I had grabbed tickets online, so I was able to go straight to the token booth and get my stein and token needs taken care of straight away. Second, the lines for beer were no problem, and there were tons of options. As I am a sucker for a good, malty beer, I dove mouth-​first into a tasty Hofbrau Oktoberfest. It was freaking delicious, but I wasn’t sure if that was just beginner’s luck, so I did it again. Nope. That was definitely a good beer. The venue (the Farmer’s Market), was absolutely perfect, with plenty of seating.
They had a great polka band and the trombone player was great — loaded down with schmaltz and that was before he hit the Alpine horn. So much fun! There were great activities for the kids too, but I felt bad for the classic VW owners as hipster parents looked on passively as their filthy little urchins defiled the beautiful old bugs and vans.
Just as I started to get uptight, I began drinking beer again, and all was well. I hit the Franziskaner Dunkel, which was just fantastic for a dark wheat beer and had some amazing flavors going on. Pretty sure there was no booze in there, so I tried another just to make sure.
Very easy to navigate and transact thanks to the power of tokens, and just a helluva lot of fun on a perfect-​weather day! And easy-​to-​obtain delicious German Bier!
My only critiques would have been on the food. While this was a kid-​friendly event, there really weren’t a lot of kid-​friendly foods, although they made due with the cheese on a stick and pretzels (and juice boxes we smuggled in). The kraut was crisp and uncooked, needed some greasy love in it. They were also sold out of vegetarian options by day 2 as well. I had the schnitzel which was OK and the sausages as well because I had to make sure they were safe for everyone else (would have liked a bigger variety). All-​in-​all the food was the weakest part (which I rest solely at the feet of Riff’s Fine Street Food), but by no means a dealbreaker, because BIER.

We headed to Nashville for the Blues/​Predators game and being Unilocalers, of course we checked the Nashville threads to see what was happening while there. The Volksfest was one of the top events listed and since we were going to Centennial Park for the Parthenon, we wanted to visit this festival.
The area was set up with beer tents, other promotions and lots of volkswagons. We had the option of buying tokens and steins right at the beginning of walking in. We started at one end of the tents and tasted our way down while we heard music playing in the background.
We of course spotted the Unilocal tent and stopped to talk to the super nice lady sitting behind it. We talked a bit, checked in and got some great swag.
Proof that Unilocal is awesome — thanks for the great suggestion of stopping by the festival!

Tony and I attended the Volksfest today at Centennial Park and we had a great time. I took a ton of photos with my cell phone, but somehow lost them during the download process to my cell phone but thank goodness I got a few on my camera before my batteries died.
We got there about 12:30.We parked and walked across the park enjoying the weather. not too cold and not too hot… just like good beer, just right!!!
We checked in with the ladies and showed our id to get our bracelets. went to the token tent to buy our beer mugs and tokens.$ 30 worth… we got one stein to share… and that way we had
plenty of tokens to drink and chow on.
We went to the beer tents in the back. first the dark beer… darker the better. I lived in Germany and it is a required taste for Americans… who are not used to… you might not appreciate a real dark robust stout of ale… but Tony was game…
Then we found a seat in the bier tent… to listen to the German Polka band… great music… like she said the more you drink the better they sounded… and they were drinking right along with us.
So I went to the Essen area to get some grub… a Pretzel and soda for one token ($ 5) great deal… so I thought. but to my disappointment. pretzelish like bread with mustard. not a true German Stoneground Mustard and not a Bavarian Pretzel… ugh…oh well. lets drink some more. this time… a lighter bier… a pilsner please… Vas??? no pilsner??? She gave me a blondie… as she called it but it was Pilsner (light)…and it was good… cold…and bier…
Then we thought we would get a brat with sauerkraut on a German brochen… but NIX on that… the sausage was like a Johnsonville… the kraut was sort of a sweet and sourish mix… and the roll… a normal bun… oh well… I guess I really need to go back to Germany for a real volksfest…
but we had fun…
We got a few more biers and left about 2:45−3.back to Nashville… leaving faux Germany behind until next year!!!
Great event…

Another well organized event by Matt Leff and company. It was fun to try several German beers on the lawn of the Parthenon and stroll around people-​watching and gawking at rare old Volkswagens… Evocative of the grand Munich beer halls of Octoberfest, the main tent had plenty of seating and a surprisingly charming epically proportioned chandelier. Gerst Hause provided the food stuffs, especially enjoyed the pretzel rolls. There was a good band playing when we arrived, but we were a little disappointed when they packed up around five and no band replaced them — we were hoping to hear a polka! Would love to see some traditional mulled wine — gluhwein — at next years event!