Auf Wiedersehen, Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest is officially canceled due to COVID-19 and social distancing restrictions, despite the festival being on pace to potentially break its record for total beer poured.

In 2019, over 7 million liters of beer were poured during the two-and-a-half-week festival in Munich – nearly breaking the record set in 2018 of 7.5 million liters. These numbers have doubled over the last three decades, where just a paltry 3.8 million liters were poured in 1980.

The beer taps have been cut off due to continued social distancing measures to protect the public from further COVID-19 transmission, and the absence of the international festival will undoubtedly be an enormous economic loss for Germany and the surrounding regions. Germany’s normal summer holiday season is also taking a hit, where normal vacation events for the country are quickly disappearing.

Cases of COVID-19 in Germany are still climbing, surpassing 140,000 on April 21 with over 4,500 deaths.