Penn Brewery's Oktoberfest Overtakes Pittsburgh's North Side

Pittsburgh's North Side has been pretty active the past two weekends. Aside from from Heinz Field and PNC Park booming, one could have left a Steelers or Pirates game and strolled on up to Vinial Street where Penn Brewery was holding its annual Oktoberfest celebration on Sept. 16-18 and 23-25.

I really wish Oktoberfest celebrations were a monthly occurrence because I can guarantee you that I'd be at every brewery in town that had one. I was at Penn's last year for this and to make a long story short, I had this excursion planned a mere two months before it was actually supposed to happen.

Last year, I spent most of the time drinking Penn's Oktoberfest Marzenbier in the tents set up outside the brewery's restaurant. As for food, there is a type of buffet line in one tent that you can go in and buy whatever your cholesterol-ridden heart desires, but more on that later.

When I went last Friday, I was lucky enough to grab a table inside the restaurant with the group I met there. So, dinner was a little more interesting than my previous experience. In the restaurant, you have the choice of getting your beer while you wait. You can be sure I took advantage of the opportunity.

During Oktoberfest, Penn has four types of its beer for sale. The aforementioned Oktoberfest, Penn Gold, Penn Weizen and Penn Dark. For me, the obvious choice was the Oktoberfest. Why the hell not? We wait all year for it.

In case you don't know, Marzenbier (otherwise known as Oktoberfest beer) is brewed in March and is typically sold in the late stages of August. It had bee exactly a year since I'd tried Penn's version and even though my tongue is still young in times it's tasted Oktoberfest beers, but Penn's is the best I've had. It blows Sam Adams away. I love the roasted-caramel after-taste I get from it.

The best part about what Penn does when selling their beers at this event? Just for $15, you can get a milk jug full of the beer of your choice.

As for dining, I ordered off of the menu and chose the wurst platter. How can you go wrong with that during a German-style celebration? It was fantastic as well. You get three foot-long sausages: frankfurter, knockwurst and bratwurst. The sausages are placed over both a bed of German-style mashed potatoes and sauerkraut.

I've never much been one for sauerkraut, but the sausage was a good compliment. It all went down easy. The potatoes even had a sweet, but sour taste to them. Not the bad kind of sour either, if you know what I mean.

Outside of the restaurant, you can find the food tent. Here you can buy whatever you want. There's bratwurst, kielbasa, giant pretzels and apple cobbler. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

I sampled a few of the pretzels since the salty taste is one of the best things to compliment a strong beer. The pretzels were great, but I must admit it would send me over the moon if you had a bit of bier cheese to dip them in. That was the only disappointing thing about this adventure.

From my two years of attending Penn's Oktoberfest, two things are apparent: the beer isn't overly expensive and a lot of people attend an event where there isn't the most amount of space available. So, if you plan to attend next year try to get there a bit early.