An almost true story: the Oktoberfest series on Netflix

Una historia casi real: la serie Oktoberfest en Netflix - Beer Sapiens

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October is coming to an end, and with it, our articles dedicated to Oktoberfest. These weeks we have told you curiosities such as the fact that only six breweries have the authorization to participate in this festival or that Einstein worked as a young man in the venue placing light bulbs. We have also told you how to prepare your own Oktobesfest at home, with the craft beers that best fit the theme and various recipes and decoration tricks to transport you almost, almost, to Munich.

But we still have more. If you have loved the atmosphere and history of this popular festival, I am going to tell you about a series that you cannot miss (and that, of course, you have to watch while having a delicious craft beer).

Oktoberfest, blood and beer

The title of the series already gives enough clues. Netflix introduces it like this: “Munich, 1900. Ambitious brewer Curt Prank resorts to ruthless tactics to build a beer hall that will dominate the lucrative Oktoberfest festival.”.

So we will have an ambitious businessman willing to become the owner and lord of Oktoberfest, but to whom, in principle, he does not have access because he is not from the city. Meanwhile, his daughter, who is very pretty and very good, falls in love with the son of the rival brewery, and of course, her father is not very happy about it. A couple of murders and other violent events begin to take place... and we already have intrigue served.

The series stars Misel Maticevic, who takes on the role of Curt Prank, the central man of this story. Although the character did not exist in real life, he is inspired by Georg Lang, a beer entrepreneur (among other things) who came to Munich around 1900 to establish his project and dominate the famous festival.

It is the director of the series, Hannu Salonen, who tells us:

"The show is based on a boy from northern Germany named Curt Prank, who is based on a real person named Georg Lang, who comes to the south with a dream of building a huge 6000 person tent in the Oktoberfest. [...] It is important to know that until he arrived, the entire festival consisted more or less of a bunch of wooden huts with some farmers and children having fun on a simple carousel. It was practically impossible for an outsider to operate in such a way. business at Oktoberfest and no beer brewed outside of Munich was allowed. But this real person, Georg Lang, pulled it off."

Inspiration: Georg Lang

Or as he was nicknamed Crocodile Georg , he came to Munich from Nuremberg around 1900 to launch his project and forever revolutionize the beer festival.

By the end of 1890 he had already gained great notoriety in his homeland as an entrepreneur. But Georg Land sensed the potential in Munich and that festival that had started almost a century earlier. The problem is that it was impossible for a foreigner to win a place at Oktoberfest, which Until then it was about farmers showing off their animals, children playing in the fields and a banquet with plenty of beer.

In order to acquire a license for the Theresienwiese field (“Theres's Meadow”), a lot had to be purchased at an auction in Munich. Those lots limited the size of cabins owners could install. But in 1895 things began to change when the Crossbow Shooters Guild managed to get permission to design a larger "beer castle".

The new tents were larger and architecturally ambitious, however they were not integrated into the central ring of the festival and the lots still restricted the size of the central pubs.

Until Lang arrived with a large tent built by an acquaintance from Nuremberg, he paid five local innkeepers to be his "figureheads": he obtained the license despite being a foreigner, he had the possibility to pitch his tent and to the law was administered by five Munich lot owners

Quickly, Lang (with a fat wallet and shamelessly offering bribes) won over the Munich municipal authorities, who despite the brand-new innkeeper's obvious omissions from current regulations, approved him for Oktoberfest licence. 1898. Only one magistrate voted against.

For his first participation in the festival, Lang set up a 6,000-capacity tent, 20 times larger than the usual beer stalls. But it was not only because of its dimensions that Lang's tent became the main attraction of the festival, but it also offered great free concerts.

From 10 in the morning, in Lang's tent you could see an orchestra of 30 people dressed in typical alpine costumes and no one had to pay to enjoy the show. The public flocked to Lang's store. In addition, he distributed songbooks with "the newest tunes" also free of charge to entice visitors to sing along. As the orchestras did not have singers due to the lack of microphones - in addition to drinking beer - Lang's clients formed a choir that made people happy and amused. A game-changing party at Oktoberfest.

From reality to fiction

The director of the series also stated: "It is important to know that until he arrived, the whole festival more or less consisted of a bunch of wooden cabins with some farmers and children having fun on a simple carousel (...) Before By Lang's arrival, the small beer shacks had mostly a lone boy playing on a small stage, in some cases along with a drunken pianist, while people got drunk having open sex.The poor waitresses had to be sold as prostitutes since their earnings consisted solely of the tip they received. It was certainly a tough world, which we also portrayed in the program, "closes the director.

That is to say that beyond the plot, the series is very interesting due to its magnificent setting, since it shows in a very successful way, what this festival was like at the beginning of the century. And how it was more like a circus festival than the big tops we find today.

The series has been filmed for more than four months in Germany, specifically in Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia, and on huge sets built ad hoc in the capital of the Czech Republic.

De la realidad a la ficción Oktoberfest