The year La Crosse’s Oktoberfest didn’t sell beer

A couple of Oktoberfest legends, Dave Ring, Brad Quarberg, joined to talk about the year La Crosse’s Oktoberfest didn’t sell beer. Yes, that was a thing, and it was part of a Top 5 list Quarberg deemed, “Five things you didn’t know about La Crosse’s Oktoberfest.”

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Others included the time the Oktoberfest medallion was held hostage and that year there wasn’t a Festmaster.

Actually had two Festmasters join the show. Ring was the 2013 Festmaster, and we began the show talking some other facts about Oktoberfest with Chuck Roth, the 2015 Festmaster, who called in.

Quarberg is our unofficial Oktoberfest historian and was the 2016 parade marshal. He was chief editor of the book The Fest of Times — a history of La Crosse Oktoberfest’s first 50 years.