READING, Pa.\u00a0– Oktoberfest is underway in Reading, giving people a chance to experience a taste of German culture, food and tradition in Berks County.<\/p>\n
The annual Reading Oktoberfest is hosted by the Reading Liederkranz, a German American social club that works to bring German traditions to the community.<\/p>\n
Event coordinator Karl Allmendinger said the festival offers attendees a chance to enjoy food, drinks, music and the culture behind the celebration.<\/p>\n
\u201cReading Liederkranz is a great place. It\u2019s a great way to celebrate Oktoberfest, the official wedding of Prince Ludwig and Therese back on October 12, 1810. Back then, they just had horse races as a celebration. The town came together and had a party, basically, and it was a great time.\u201d Allmendinger said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The festival features live music along with traditional German food and drinks, much of which is prepared by club members.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe start working ahead of time, months and months ahead of time,\u201d said Joel Strohecker, social media manager for Reading Liederkranz. \u201cThis is a huge undertaking for the club, and it\u2019s all run by volunteers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Organizers say the event is open to everyone, whether or not they have German roots.<\/p>\n
For Strohecker, one of the most meaningful parts of Oktoberfest is the sense of community it creates.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy favorite part of Oktoberfest is the Gamutlikite, which is the friendships,\u201d Strohecker said. \u201cEveryone having a good time, closeness, everyone having a great time during the festival.\u201d<\/p>\n
The festival continues Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., giving visitors another opportunity to take part in the celebration and experience German culture in Berks County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa.\u00a0– Oktoberfest is underway in Reading, giving people a chance to experience a taste of German culture,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,524,1137,9274,79577,15425,23764,128,130,129,123471,5431],"class_list":["post-299422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-community","tag-festival","tag-food-and-drink","tag-german-culture","tag-live-music","tag-oktoberfest","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-liederkranz","tag-tradition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}