Members of Messiah Lutheran Church in Citrus Heights enjoyed the sounds of the Alpen Band California during their Oktoberfest celebration on October 28. Photo by Elise Spleiss

CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA (MPG) - The Alpen Band California visited Messiah Lutheran Church in Citrus Heights on October 28, to help make its annual Oktoberfest even more official, but without the beer!

The festivities would not be Lutheran without a potluck including BBQ beer-soaked bratwurst, sauerkraut, salads, the required red Jello and many desserts, followed by an hour of authentic Oktoberfest polka music.

Band leader Kurt Walters, originally from Karlsruhe, a city in southwest Germany, started the band in 1988. He gave a brief history of Oktoberfest. The tradition got started in 1810 in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, in honor of the marriage of the crown prince of Bavaria to princess Therese. The prince’s father, King Maximilian wanted a huge celebration. The festivities began October 10 to October 17 ending with a huge horse race. Beer didn’t become part of the celebration until 1818.

The largest Oktoberfest in the world continues in Munich, Bavaria and officially lasts 16 days. Today it is all about the beer, described as “a two-week carbohydrate-filled festival of beer and merriment.”  

During the days’ performance the audience was kept busy. There was a lot of toe-tapping with the different styles of Polka. There was the unexpected: The Chicken Song led by a 6-foot chicken, and “Do Rei Me” a best-known sing along song, reworded to “the beer song.” There was also a group calisthenics piece to work off lunch and even some dancing to a Party Song. One highlight was a Czech polka from the early 1930’s as is sure to have been seen on the Lawrence Welk Show.

One song was performed with a nine-foot alphorn or long horn. The alphorn was a signal horn used by herdsmen and villagers to signal other horns up and down the valley in the Alps. Walters had to stand on the table to play “The Lowenbrau Song,” a much slower piece.

Anjuli Casem gave the chicken time for a costume change and a change of pace as she sang her rendition of Shania Twain’s, “Man! I Feel Like a Woman.”

The one sad moment of the day was hearing the “No Beer Medley” consisting of “No Beer in Heaven, Without Beer, and There’s No Beer in Hawaii.”

This is one Messiah Oktoberfest that will be long remembered and a hard act to follow.