First, for those of you who missed the Harpoon Octoberfest, or were just too lazy to stand outside on a beautiful night sipping delicious beer, allow us to give you some solid facts on which to build an image of the gloriousness you missed--other than great Oktoberfestbier

Our first impression upon walking into the open area scattered with tents was “Good God, it’s crowded!” Friday and Saturday evenings combined, Harpoon hosted about 15,000 people (breaking records for each day). The crowd spread out inside the brewery, outside under a clear sky and waning sun, and of course pushed up against each other vying to be first in the line under one of the beer tents.

Naturally this brings up some questions: How many beers were sold? How many kegs were tapped? Harpoon wasn’t at liberty to provide these statistics, but we can certainly make some estimates. (Junior High math time!) Suppose the average number of beers bought by each attendee was three. There are 124 pints to a half barrel, how many needed to serve 15,000 people, carry the one, raise it to the exponent of IPA, and voila: 365 kegs and over 45,000 beers. Wow.

Bear in mind that these are not official numbers, and this Bostonist forgot her multiplication tables long ago, so her math may be sketchy. We do know for sure that the most popular beers at the festival were the UFO Hefeweizen, Harpoon Octoberfest, and the Harpoon IPA, in that order. Why wasn't the Octoberfest beer #1 at Octoberfest? We may never know.

Walking through the crowd, we saw beers of each variety in hands, spilling over onto others while the beer fans cheered for their favorite keg bowler. Wait: keg bowler? Yes, you heard right.

Photo Courtesy Harpoon Brewery. More about the keg bowling after the jump!

One of the first things we came upon when entering the outdoor mayhem of Octoberfest were two gangly young men with glazed eyes hefting kegs into the air down a “bowling alley.” The noise of the keg bowling would have been tremendous if not for the thousands and thousands of people milling about the outside area and chatting. It might have been downright obnoxious if the proceeds from the crazy keg bowling had not been donated to Harpoon charities--read more about this at Harpoon Helps.

There were tents set up for two Oompah bands and four rock bands. And, of course, there were several more tents for buying beer. There was an intense moment of panic when we feared we’d never make it to the beer tent. Frankly, when surrounded by that many young people stumbling into each other and sloshing beer on strangers (uttering increasingly loud but apologetic “Sorry!”s to each other), you need a drink as soon as possible. Finally, we succeeded in securing some brew and found that, after the second IPA, the world was fine. (Got beer down all over your shirt? Salut!) The tuba beat of a brass heavy, fedora-sporting German Oompah band named the Oberlaendler Hofbrau Band was enough to make us dance.

Everybody shook their Oompahs to such ditties as “The Beer Barrel Polka!” Those seriously grabbed by the music could be found do-si-doing each other around in front of the band and moshing Oktoberfest-style. We even saw a flying chest-bump ending in disastrous beer spillage. But who could not have fun listening to a tuba-heavy band in red suspenders, vests, green fedoras covered in pins? Not us. Especially not if they yell “Wunderbar!” after each number.

Performing in another tent was one of the four rock bands, Three Day Threshold. This country funk rock band that made for a Honky Tonk Oktoberfest. The band's unique amalgamation of styles was evident in covers of Rolling Stones classics mixed in with Johnny Cash, but it was perhaps most evident in their attire: all but one member wore leather cowboy hats; a lone guitarist preferred the mesh-back hat. Three Day Threshold was definitely a fun band and provided the ideal music to accompany the crisp night made warm by the crush of people and the bellies full of Harpoon beer. It was the perfect end to the evening: the moonlight, the laughing camaraderie, the seagulls and airplanes soaring low overhead, the drunk guy trying to take a sip of beer but dunking his whole nose in the head, and, of course, the hope that none of these people would be on our train on the way home.