About New Braunfels Wurstfest

We went to New Braunfels today to the annual German festival, Wurstfest. It started out pretty chilly – 43 degrees, but soon warmed up. We wore our jackets but soon had to take them off and put them back in the truck. It was in the mid-70's by the time we got home.

It was a fun day. When we got to New Braunfels, the things that were advertised to open at 10 – weren’t open and they said, “0h no, not until 11”. We had parked in a paid parking lot, so we left the truck there and walked several blocks downtown to the main plaza. There is a German bakery there and we got coffee and rolls and sat outside on the patio at a table and ate.

By that time the plaza was filled with craft tables and booths so we spent probably an hour wandering from booth to booth looking at everything. Well, not everything. I think we could have spent all day there. Phoebe got a couple of things. We both enjoyed looking at everything there and she got some new ideas for her crafts.

Then we walked back to where we had parked. There was an arts and crafts show set up in the Knights of Columbus building and they also had food available there. It looked good but we didn’t get anything right then. We went on across the highway to the Wurst Fest grounds. It cost $8 each to get into the grounds.

We walked around in there and listened to a German band. It was really good. We got a bratwurst sausage with sauerkraut in a pita but you know how they over-price things at festivals. It was good though. There were other bands playing and lots of things going on and of course all the usual food booths - funnel cakes and all kinds of things.

Later we went back across to the arts and crafts building and got potato soup and coffee in there. That soup was delicious and very reasonable. We each had a large cup of soup and a cup of coffee for $5.00 for both of us.

By that time we were ready to head back home. It is a 45-minute drive and traffic was heavy on I-35 but we got home by 2:00 p.m.

Sis’s church is having a harvest festival tonight for the neighborhood children. She plans to help with that. I may go along and help too.

This article was in this morning's news about Wurstfest.

First bite of wurst to kick off Wurstfest in Landa Park in New Braunfels on Friday.
If you go
WHAT: Wurstfest
WHEN: Through Nov. 8
WHERE: Landa Park, New Braunfels
COST: $8; children 12 and under admitted free
INFO: (830) 625-9167; www.wurstfest.com

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By Jennifer R. Lloyd - Express-News NEW BRAUNFELS — The 10-day celebration of sausage, beer, polka and all things German kicked off with Wurstfest’s ceremonial biting of the sausage Friday as a visiting German couple celebrated a ceremony of a different kind.

Newlyweds Jessica and Antonio Mastandrea, from the area near Braunfels, Germany, were spending a week of their honeymoon experiencing New Braunfels’ version of the traditional German Oktoberfest. Festival officials predicted that between 120,000 and 150,000 visitors will attend the 49th annual Wurstfest this year. About half of those, like the Mastandreas, likely will come from outside New Braunfels, said Herb Skoog, director of Wurst Relations.

Jessica Mastandrea first visited New Braunfels eight years ago through a Wurstfest exchange program. After a fellow exchange student attended the couple’s wedding two months ago, the Mastandreas decided to return the favor with a visit to New Braunfels during their honeymoon.

The biting of the sausage to herald the festival’s beginning is one example of how Wurstfest organizers have adapted German traditions over the years.

“At the Munich Oktoberfest, they start with tapping of first keg,” Skoog said. “We’re a sausage festival, so we have officials onstage and on countdown, we bite into string of sausages.”

The festival dubbed the “Salute to Sausage” has been a staple since the city first honored the food in 1961 as a way to promote the local commercial sausage makers, Skoog said.

Grammy-nominated accordionist Alex Meixner, who led the countdown to the communal sausage chomping, said he steps off his diet and consumes sausage, fried Oreos and “one, two or 50 Shiner Bocks” when he comes to perform at Wurstfest.

“Although I have known vegetarians who have attended Wurstfest, it’s not exactly a vegetarian wonderland here,” said Meixner, who hails from Pennsylvania and is back at Wurstfest for his 11th year in a row. “There are so many great varieties of sausage.”

The variety of edibles — from fried cheesecake to German tacos — can only be topped by the variety of people in attendance. The 2,000 people who attended the first Wurstfest couldn’t even man all the volunteer positions for this year’s festival. Skoog estimated about 5,000 volunteers are in some way involved with the festival, including the nearly 300 people who make up the heart of the nonprofit Wurstfest Association.

“There are all kinds of different people and everybody just congregates together and has a good time,” said Glenn Herfurth, who leads the Cloverleaf Orchestra. The orchestra has played German waltzes and polkas at every Wurstfest thus far, and Herfurth has been a part of the New Braunfels-based group since the 1980s. Despite his years of performing, Herfurth said he never grows tired of playing crowd favorites like the “Chicken Dance.”

“It doesn’t matter where we go; they want the ‘Chicken Dance,’ especially the kids. They love it, and that’s good because it gets the young people out to dance to more of the German music,” Herfurth said.

While the Mastandreas donned the traditional German wear for the first day of the festival — Jessica in a dress called a dirndl and Antonio in knee-breeches called lederhosen — the two pointed out a few differences between the Oktoberfest in Germany and Wurstfest. The German Oktoberfest is much larger and no one drinks beer out of plastic cups, Jessica said. But that didn’t detract from their honeymoon.

“We’re going to have a good time and see how the American people see the German way of life,” Antonio said. “That is great that one American city is cheering German culture.”