By Callum Ludwig
The Alpine Hotel in Warburton is donning their lederhosen, cleaning their beer steins and crumbing their schnitzel for an Oktoberfest celebration.
From Friday 7 October through to Sunday 9 October, The Alpine Hotel is decked out for the Bavarian traditional festival, with Warburton striking a few similarities to the alpine regions in Germany.
Owner Rachael Northwood said normally October is a quiet time in Australia, but it’s a good opportunity to get a beer in hand and enjoy the springtime.
“It’s great for getting you out with friends after hibernating through winter and bringing the community together for a different culinary experience,” she said.
“It’s a bit different to the usual VBs and Carlton Draught’s, with German beer, food and entertainment like bells and accordions.”
Warburton has a relatively strong German population, with 4.8% of the population listing German ancestry and 0.8% having been born in the country according to the 2021 Census, the most of any non-Anglo country.
Hotel Manager James Stewart said it was a good opportunity to bring something different to the Yarra Valley.
“Especially with Covid, events had been stagnant and mainly it will just be a bit of fun. It will hopefully bring a bit of spirit to the town and the venue as we get closer to fully opening,” he said.
“The venue is fairly limitless as to what we can do which why we can put something on like this, we have a lot of seats to fill and space for everyone. These things help invite as many different groups of people, celebrating different cultures and different foods. We are a hotel first, but is definitely a pub element as a public house.”
Despite renovations still ongoing at the Alpine Hotel to bring a new state of the art kitchen, the chefs will be making a fantastic effort to deliver a variety of German dishes such as platters of cured pork meats, pickles and cheeses, Bratwurst and a whole pigs knuckle as well as strudel for desert.
A number of German and Austrian-style beers will also be available such as Trumer pilsners and Erdinger Schofferhofer wheat beer with specials on Schnapps and Jagermeister.
