Dust off your lederhosen and gird your liver: Oktoberfest is here. 

Sure, the festival originated in Germany, but it’s a great excuse to celebrate (and show off) Oregon’s beer heritage and local brews. So if you can’t make it to Munich this weekend, Eugene and Springfield have you covered.

Plus, we’ve got plenty of non-beer-related happenings to share.

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YOUR WEEKEND ITINERARY

Start your weekend cheering for the Ducks at Rally in the Alley, held Thursday and Friday beginning at 5:30 p.m. at 5th Street Market Alley. Watch UO highlights while enjoying Ducks food specials and craft beverages.

Beergarden’s Oktoberfest is a celebration of all things beer, brat and beyond. Between Sept. 19 and Oct. 4, Beergarden will spotlight breweries, with rotating draft selections, events and live music. Following Oktoberfest tradition, the mayor (in this case, Eugene Mayor Kaarin Knudson) will kick off the festival Saturday by tapping the first keg. Throughout the week, you can enjoy German-inspired food such as beer brat corn chowder, pork schnitzel and a soft pretzel with passionfruit honey mustard — excellent accompaniments for Beergarden’s curated lineup of brews.

Exterior of PublicHouse
A combination seventh anniversary/early Oktoberfest celebration will take over PublicHouse this weekend. Credit: Vanessa Salvia / Lookout Eugene-Springfield

In Springfield, PublicHouse is celebrating the fall tradition all weekend, with Oktoberfest drink and food specials, live music and plenty of festivities. That includes Springfield Mayor Sean VanGordon tapping the first keg at 5 p.m. Friday, followed by a stein-hoisting competition, where you’ll likely witness contestants make very strained, “my arm is about to fall off” facial expressions. The festival concludes Sunday with a pet adoption event by LuckyPawz.

Make it Orchardfest in Harrisburg: Detering Orchards is hosting its own Oktoberfest Saturday and Sunday. Pick apples and other produce, have a beer or hard cider in the saloon (fresh-pressed apple cider is also available) and nosh on Polish dogs slathered with sauerkraut. Bring your kids: There’s a mechanical bull, corn cannons and an animal corral.

If you’re heading to Florence Saturday, pull over in Mapleton for the community’s annual fall festival. Beginning at 10 a.m., you’ll enjoy a classic car show, live music, food, face painting, a chili cook-off, vendor goods and let’s not forget the foam cannon. Mapleton sits along the winding Siuslaw River and is surrounded by bigleaf maple trees, making it the perfect backdrop for fall festivities.

In non-fall-specific festivities, Saturday also brings two different new music festivals: Turning Tides Music Festival — a gathering of standout folk musicians from around the country and world coming into Springfield for a day of music at Island Park — and Everyone Fest — a fundraiser festival from Everyone Village bringing in favorite local bands for a day of music.

one thing we loved this week

Paintings are on display in the Hult Center’s Maurie Jacobs Community Room as a passerby climbs the stairs outside. Credit: Annie Aguiar / Lookout Eugene-Springfield

The Hult Center’s Maurie Jacobs Community Room is a gorgeous sliver of Eugene, with natural light that fills the space and illuminates whatever’s inside. This week, the view is particularly lovely: gallerist Karin Clarke has mounted the exhibit “Beyond the Figure” in the space, part of an effort from the Hult Center to return to using the room for visual art with regular exhibitions.

in case you missed it — food and arts news

I (Taylor) recently spent the morning at Reality Kitchen on River Road. If you didn’t know, Reality Kitchen is a nonprofit that offers inclusive employment opportunities for people with and without disabilities. I also got to learn about their recently relaunched food cart, Reality Bites, with a brand-new menu (if you like shatteringly crisp fish and chips, I beckon you to visit). As the sister of someone with intellectual and developmental disabilities, Reality Kitchen struck a chord with me because it’s a microcosm of a truly accessible society. Oh, and I’m still thinking about the “pretzel-fied” pain au chocolat I sampled.

From recent additions to 5th Street Market Eateries and a new date night spot in downtown Eugene, to Oakshire’s Springfield taproom reopening after a brief hiatus, we’ve got a ton of food and bev news to catch up on. We covered it all here.

How about taking home some teeny tiny pieces of art? Radiant Community Arts’ annual So Small Miniature Art Auction is this Sunday at 5th Street Market Alley. Annie spoke with the team behind the auction about the big task of sharing tiny art.

Question for you

We’re gearing up for a fun fall guide and would love your input. We want to know: 

  1. What are your autumnal traditions? 
  2. What local fall happenings are you itching to know about? 

(For example, one of our readers asked where she could find cider doughnuts locally, which we WILL be investigating thoroughly and will NOT benefit from personally in any way whatsoever.)

Drop me a line at taylor@lookoutlocal.com.

BEFORE YOU GO …

Taylor here. From my desk, I raise my bubble tea to you and exclaim, “Prost!”

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Annie Aguiar is the Arts and Culture Correspondent. She has reported arts news and features for national and local newsrooms, including at the Seattle Times, the Washington Post and most recently as a reporting fellow for the New York Times’ Culture desk covering arts and entertainment.

Taylor Goebel covers Lane County's food and drink scene. She has nearly a decade of experience in multimedia journalism, having reported across the Mid-Atlantic on dining, food systems, education, healthcare, local elections, labor and business. She was most recently a food reporter in Washington state, where she documented a fourth-generation fishing family, covered a David vs. Goliath conflict between a national coffee chain and a small Turkish cafe, and had many culinary firsts, from ensaymadas and gilgeori (Korean street) toast to morels and black cod.