This year Oktoberfest began on Saturday, Sept. 19 when the mayor of Munich tapped the first keg of beer. The world’s largest and most famous beer-drinking festival will conclude with a gun salute on the first Sunday of October. Over the festival’s 16 days, the six breweries legally permitted to serve beer anticipate pouring more than 6 million liters of golden, malty lager this year. While it might surprise — or even offend — beer purists, a significant number of those 6 million liters will be diluted with soda.
The traditional combination of beer and lemon soda is called a “radler,” and it’s offered as an option everywhere beer is sold at Oktoberfest. While the official number of beers served is tallied at the end of the fest, the number of radlers sold is not counted. There does not seem to be much national pride for this mixed drink, nonetheless, the radler is an enduring staple of the German festival — there’s even a popular Oktoberfest anthem “Radler Ist Kein Alkohol” poking fun at its ubiquitous nature. Here’s how lemon soda became a fixture of beer’s biggest event.
What is a Radler?
The term “radler” or “radlermass” translates directly to “cyclist” or “cyclist’s liter” in German and its meaning can be traced back to the beverage’s origin story. In 1922, a Bavarian innkeeper named Franz Xaver Kugler was visited by an unexpected group of cyclists stopping for a couple pints before continuing their journey. Either Kugler was running low on beer, or he was concerned for his guests’ safety on the second half of their ride, because he poured them a combination of local beer and lemon-flavored soft drink. As the story goes, he called the mixture a “radler.”
While Kugler is credited as the first to use the term, he was not the first to combine beer with a soft drink. British pubkeepers were pouring beer and lemonade or ginger ale together and calling it “shandy” at least 75 years prior to Kugler debuting the radler. Charles Dickens referenced shandy as an acceptable beverage for an honest man on a hot day in his periodical “All the Year Round” in 1860.
Though not as widely known as the shandy, the radler has also exhibited some serious staying power, and the mixed beverage has only gained in popularity over the last century since Kugler first served one up. While it was once thought of as merely a refreshing beverage for hot summer days, it’s now widely available at all German beer festivals from Starkbierzeit in March to Oktoberfest in early autumn.
Why Drink Radlers?
“I only drink radlers” explains Sally Pilkington, a British expat who’s lived in Munich off and on since 2009 and has been to more than 10 Oktoberfests. “It’s not quite so alcoholic” she adds, “if you’re going to spend four to five hours there and drink a full mass of beer, you’ll get quite drunk.”
Pilkington is referring to the fact that tables in the beer tents at Oktoberfest are reserved for three-plus hour periods. Fest-goers wait in long lines to enter the tents so you’re expected to continue ordering, eating, and drinking once inside. Beer is served in a standard liter mug called a “mass.”
Those looking to practice moderation can purchase a liter of non-alcoholic beer for the same price as normal beer, but radler is the only low-ABV beverage available inside the beer tents. The typical fest beer contains around 6 percent ABV, making a radler around 3 percent ABV.
While an ABV of 6 percent may not seem worrisome, consider the atmosphere inside the tents. Energetic attendees squeeze shoulder to shoulder with friends and strangers in the heat, singing and shouting “prost!” while gulping beer every few seconds. For those looking to pace themselves over the marathon event, the radler provides the ideal balance.
“It’s fine to be drunk [at Oktoberfest].” explains Dominic Blum, an engineer who spent five years working at a biergarten in Hanau, Germany that hosts a popular Oktoberfest event for Frankfurters who can’t make it down to Munich. “It’s not the best, but it’s normal. People misbehave and it’s expected. There’s always security around, and that’s why the glass mugs are so thick,” Blum adds.
The security isn’t meant to seem menacing or threatening though, but rather to allow people to freely drink without worry. This is also why radlers are always available as an option — so you don’t have to stop drinking.
Though the concept of this traditional beverage holds strong, the format continues to evolve. According to Blum, some now opt to mix their beer with sparkling water rather than lemon soda, optimizing hydration and preserving more of the beer’s flavor.
As booze consumption continues to trend downward, sessionable, low-ABV drinks and practices like zebra striping seem to be gaining a cultural foothold. While there’s a new flavor of canned seltzer or a low-ABV RTD available every season, the humble radler has always been available for those of us hoping to drink a bit less without skipping the party or beer festival entirely.
How to Make a Radler at Home
If you care to try it at home, here’s the recipe for the radler served at Oktoberfest:
Ingredients
- 12 ounce can of Sprite
- 12 ounce bottle of Bavarian lager, (Paulaner, Hofbräu, and Spaten are the easiest to find in the U.S. but it’s rare to see their festbier which has a stronger, maltier flavor than the standard helles style)
Directions
- Pour and combine the two beverages equally in the largest beer glass that you own.
While this makes a fine radler, and brings back fond memories of days spent clinking liter-sized mugs, there are much better beer-soda cocktails possible. A radler made with wheat beer and lemonade is called a “Russenmass” and combining lager and cola is a “Diesel.” Here’s my personal favorite radler lately:
Ingredients
- 8 ounces of “Festbier” from a local craft brewery, or any helles lager
- 4 ounces of San Pellegrino sparkling citrus soda (Any citrus flavor works! The citrus Spindrift seltzers also go well with helles lager)
Directions
- Pour the beer into a glass until it’s about two-thirds full, and fill the rest of the glass with the soda.
