Ted Bohr of Batavia, who says he is German, loves celebrating Oktoberfest and found a way to do that with his wife Erica on Saturday in North Aurora.
“I’ve never been to the real Oktoberfest in Munich but I enjoy celebrating it,” Bohr said while sporting a German-inspired hat with a multiple collection of pins on it at North Aurora’s first-ever Oktoberfest celebration Saturday at Riverfront Park. “I got this hat at a German fest in Milwaukee. I take it out every year and put it on.”
The 10-hour Oktoberfest celebration in North Aurora included all the usual elements ranging from German music and classic food items to a beer tent and a smaller outdoor beer garden which was manned by local breweries who organizers said made the whole event possible.
North Aurora Community Relations Coordinator Natalie Stevens said the new Oktoberfest celebration was something that was planned in an effort to offer more community events and “bridge a gap between other events we hold in the village.”
“One of the Village Board goals from our strategic plan guiding us this year was to increase community events whether they are big or small, and we have a little bit of a gap between North Aurora Days in early August and our next Christmas event,” she said. “We have some smaller things like our ‘trunk-or-treat’ but we threw out the idea of doing an Oktoberfest in the fall as an option as it was something different.”
Stevens said having an Oktoberfest celebration in North Aurora makes sense, since it remains “a huge beer festival and we have a local brewery right here in town.”
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“We reached out to see if they were interested in doing it,” she said. “Brother Chimp Brewing has been here for a while and once they said yes, we were a go.”
Stevens said a total of four breweries were recruited to offer beer for the fest, including breweries from nearby towns.
Penrose Brewing Company was on hand from Geneva and sales manager Anthony Sperando said the brewery wanted to come to the festival “as North Aurora is close to our spot and this is still home turf for us.”
“We have plenty of people who come from North Aurora and we hope this gets some traction. It’s early but we’ve already seen a lot of people,” he said Saturday. “We’re close and it’s like we threw the kegs down the river.”
A special Village of North Aurora stein was available for purchase as well at the event.
“We’re excited to have events and people down to the park and have a wide range of activities for adults and kids including a huge straw mountain for kids to climb on and some pumpkin painting as well as a scavenger hunt,” Stevens said of the Oktoberfest event. “There is also a pumpkin carving contest and a costume contest.”
A special feature offered later on Saturday afternoon was a dachshund race including 40 dogs that were set to take part “in multiple runs.”
North Aurora resident Marcia Jay said she was glad to see the village “add some more events,” saying that even even though she isn’t German herself, she enjoys the food.
“I’m not here for the beer, it’s the food,” she said. “I think there is a universality to this because of the food culture.”
Rodney Spence of Aurora and his wife Julie brought their daughter Brooklyn, 5, and said he himself is German and that he “likes seeing everyone getting together and trying different varieties of food and enjoying the music as well.”
“I hope this becomes a tradition,” he said.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.