What do you think of this fact?
Today at 12 noon, it happens again: in the Schottenhamel tent, Munich’s mayor hammers the tap into the first keg and shouts “O’zapft is!” (“It’s tapped!”). Sounds like an ancient tradition. In fact, the ritual only goes back to 1950.
A mayor without much practice
According to the City of Munich, the tradition was started on September 16, 1950, by then-mayor Thomas Wimmer. The premiere wasn’t elegant. It isn’t even entirely clear how many strokes Wimmer needed before the beer finally flowed: the city and the official Oktoberfest website say 17 strokes, while the Munich newspaper Abendzeitung says 19. Everyone agrees it was a lot.
Why the Schottenhamel tent of all places became the stage is “not clarified beyond doubt”, according to the city. One story goes like this: Wimmer had just opened a trade fair on the Theresienhöhe, it was raining, time was short, and he took the shortest route into the nearest tent. The Oktoberfest website stresses that it’s not well documented whether it really happened that way or is more of a legend.
The record: two strokes
His successors got better at it. The record is two strokes, shared by former mayors Christian Ude and Dieter Reiter. At his premiere in 1993, though, Ude still needed seven, according to the Abendzeitung.
Since 1980, the Bavarian minister-president has also traditionally received the first freshly tapped liter of beer, handed over by the mayor.
Even the catchphrase isn’t accident-proof: according to the Abendzeitung, mayor Erich Kiesl forgot the cry entirely at his first tapping. The next time, he shouted the scrambled “Izapft os!”.
So if a stroke misses today: that has been part of the tradition since 1950.