Finally folk festivals again! So real, with beer tents, beer gardens, beer tables, wheat beer carousels and and and…ah yes, beer is also served. Breathless nights with deadly fun are looming. In anticipation, brains are already flooding bodies with copious amounts of serotonin. And yet there is resentment. Munich’s Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter and Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder recently had a political handshake. “You can – as happened in Bavaria – also dissolve the “Team Caution” and turn it into a “Team Volksfest-Hopping”,” said Reiter in the direction of Söder. This rider has been tormented for a long time with his urging that the Wiesn must take place again in 2022.
It’s easy for the prime minister to talk, he only has to hop from beer tent to beer tent. Perhaps the most important job is done by others. Apart from the fact that the municipalities and not the Free State are responsible if Corona still thwarts the folk festivals: Who traditionally taps the first beer kegs at the folk festivals? Exactly, the mayors. And after two years of a corona-related break at the folk festival, they are completely out of practice when it comes to tapping.
“I practiced diligently so as not to get completely out of practice.”
Tapping a beer keg isn’t like riding a bike. You have to train. In this respect, the mayors are left in the lurch by the Free State. Neither does it offer online seminars for the heads of town hall, nor does it provide them with expert training staff. And so the mayors have to settle it again on their own, at their own risk! Imagine it like this: Dachau’s Mayor Florian Hartmann thrashes beer barrels in the hobby room of his basement. In the right hand a mallet, in the left a brass valve. He hits it again and again until he can blindly tap a barrel with two hits at three in the morning.
Hartmann’s mayor colleague Franz Obesser from Markt Indersdorf shows that such training can leave its mark: “I’ve had a forced break for two years now. But I’ve been practicing diligently so as not to get completely out of practice,” he said recently at the traditional beer tasting for the Indersdorfer Volksfest, which starts on May 20th. He pointed to a bruise on his finger. Whether this comes from domestic tapping exercises or not, Obesser left open. After all, someone like him doesn’t complain, he prefers to let his actions speak for themselves. According to a press release, the mayor “skillfully” managed to tap the beer tasting barrel. Franz Obesser is ready. The way is clear for: “Ozapft is!”