Prost to Beijing beer fest

Michael Schottenhamel's first memory of Oktoberfest, one of the world's largest beer festivals, in Munich, Germany, goes back to 1969, when he was a boy of 3 or 4 years old.

"I was sitting on top of a barrel, when the lord mayor tapped it to announce the beginning of the festival. There were 10,000 people watching," he recalls.

As the fifth generation member of a family selling beer at Oktoberfest, Schottenhamel is proud of being part of Bavarian tradition.

Schottenhamel, president of Schottenhamel GmbH & Co KG, is sharing this tradition with Beijing's beer-lovers, as the organizer of the first Beijing International Beer Festival, running from Saturday to Aug 15 at Beijing's Xiedao (Crab Island) Holiday Resort.

The resort's employees will all be clad in tracht, traditional German clothes for the festival, and 200 German beer girls have been flown in from Europe for the event.

Meanwhile, Schottenhamel is training Chinese staff to serve beer in the German way, and seeing to it that German musicians will perform Chinese songs.

Eight huge Bavarian style beer tents have been established at the resort, with a seating capacity of 84,000 people.

"There are 3,000 activities outside Germany called Oktoberfest. But I'm not aware of any one as big as this," Schottenhamel says.

The beer expert came to Beijing for the first time in November 2006. Since then he has visited nearly 40 times, both for business and leisure. His venture with Xiedao started in 2009.

When asked about the timing of the event, he says: "July is a good time in China because a lot of people, especially students, are on holiday."

The first Oktoberfest was held in 1810, in Munich, to celebrate the marriage of Prince Ludwig and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

Schottenhamel's great grandfather built one of Munich's first beer tents in 1867, which was able to accommodate 50 people.

"There was no central heating or refrigerators and ice had to be fetched from the mountains," he says. "My great grandfather was the first to use electric bulbs in his beer tent. He invited a 17-year-old student of electricity to install them - it was Albert Einstein."

When he was 16, Schottenhamel started to work full time in different capacities - selling beer, counting tokens and taking reservation. Everybody in the family had a role and his was manager.

Oktoberfest in Munich lasts half a month from late September to early October, while the Beijing event will last for a whole month. Instead of building temporary beer tents like those in Munich, the ones in Xiedao will be permanent.

"The biggest challenges are logistics, quality of beer and service," Schottenhamel says.

The beer festival at Xiedao is also intended to be a carnival.

"We are making every effort to make it original," he says. "We have brought staff, know-how and beer recipes from Germany."

He is bringing over beers from Weihenstephan, Munich's oldest brewery, and ARCO, both favorites of his.

The name Schottenhamel means "Scottish house", or "Scottish sheep", as his ancestors are originally from Scotland. Therefore he chose the head of a ram with two bold, curving horns, as his company logo.

The daring German hopes to make Xiedao not just a "celebration meeting point" during the beer festival, but also a place for international cultural exchanges.

"The best way of being together is to eat and drink," he says, adding he can drink up to 5 liters of beer at a time and his favorite Chinese brew is Tsingdao.

Even so, as an organizer, Schottenhamel says he has to stay sober and prepared. He will stay in Beijing for six weeks throughout the event to ensure everything goes well.

The ambitious German reveals his company has held the same sort of events in Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom, and he looks forward to organizing more events of a similar nature around China.

Schottenhamel has not just been to big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, but also traveled to Yunnan's Lijiang, Xinjiang's Kashi and Sichuan's E'mei Mountain.

"It's always essential to know the country and the people," he says. "Therefore it (the festival) is an emotional thing for me not only because it is Oktoberfest, but because I've been received with friendship wherever I've gone."

He believes Chinese people are "not bad" at beer drinking. "They will love drinking our beer," he adds.

China Daily

(China Daily 07/16/2011 page12)