Many beer festival revelers don’t know how the festivities began. Beer festivals began with a wedding commemoration. The crown prince of Bavaria, King Ludwig 1 of the future, married Sachsen-Hildburghausen’s Princess Therese.

Located in southern Germany, Bavaria was only four years old as a Kingdom. The royal family invited the entire Munich, Bavaria’s capital, to the wedding. It did so to build up national unity and the celebrations took place outside the gates of the city in open fields.

Today, the fields are known as Theresienwiese (Therese’s meadow), or Wies’m in short form. The wedding celebration took place for six days and over 10,000 people were in attendance. The fields hosted a horse race, a parade and a fair.

This event gave birth to many popular beer festivals worldwide. They include:

• Fruhlingsfest – a mini version of Oktoberfest
• Oktoberfest
• Dorffeste – village festivals that occur between May and June
• Starkbierfest – the oldest festival and the first to occur in any given year. The hidden treasure is filled with lavish history and ancient tradition.

Today, it’s not just the Germans who love celebrating their beer, but the events have become widespread worldwide.

Many beer celebrations began with monks, the initial beer brewers in Munich. They brewed beer in monasteries. The monks faced a dilemma during Lent. They had a dry fast for 40 days; they weren’t allowed to eat food but could only drink.

They crafted beer rich in calories and other nutrients to keep them full and satisfied for longer during the Lent. Due to its high calorie content, the monks referred to the beer as “Flussiges Brot’ – liquid bread.

The Paulaner monks were the first to create Starkbier, and brewed the first batch of barrels known as ‘Salvator’ in 1629. This explains the origin of the Starkbier and many other beers and beer festivals from around the world.

Starkbier means strong beer. However, the strength in the beer doesn’t refer to alcohol strength, but the concentration of solids such as starch in the beer. However, the percentage of alcohol in Starkbier is higher than in ordinary beer.

Although only the monks drank the beer, Karl Theodor changed the laws to allow the public to share in the beer happiness.

Similarly, the Southern Brewers Festival shares the same origins and history of the very first craft beer, Starkbier. We pay tribute to the mother of all beer and craft beer.