Seventeen Very Important and Echt-German Rules for Oktoberfest in Portland So You Don’t Drink Bier the Wrong Way

German drinking is different from American drinking, and so when you go to your big fake Oktoberfest at Oaks Park with the real Paulaner bier that is tragically not Augustiner bier, there are so many rules. We Germans have so many rules, because rules are how you know how to have fun.

Here are the rules for good German drinking. Prost!

1. When you are clinking the glasses before you drink, you always look each and every person in the eye, every time you clink every glass. Otherwise you will be having seven years bad sex!
2. Never drink without clinking a glass and looking a person in the eye. Strangers or children, A-OK! Unless the children do not have bier! Never clink a glass with a glass that does not have bier! If a child does not have bier, give the child some bier. If you clink a glass without bier, also seven years bad sex!
3. All drunken children under the age of 16 must be accompanied by their parents. Or by an irresponsible uncle or something.
4. There are many things you can say when you are clinking the glasses. You can say “Prost!” Or “Prosit!” Or “Skoll!” Or “Zum Wohl!”  Or “Eins! Zwei! G’sufe!” or “Lasst euch nicht lumpen, hoch mit den Humpen!”
5. When the music plays you are to lock arms with your neighbor and sway back and forth. Germans dance from side to side, not up and down like a pathetic little bunny rabbit.
6. Drinking and dancing on benches is a very normal thing that people do. Drinking and dancing on tables or bartops like an American Ugly Coyote is disgusting and you will be thrown out, you animal-like thing.
7. Wear appropriate hats, like hats with three corners, and big pointy cloth hats like the kind dwarves wear, with blue and white string around them. Do not wear American basketball hats with strange letters on them like P or C or NY that mean nothing and will make people think you are very stupid.
8. Only kiss a stranger if a stranger kisses you first, and only if you are very drunk. Come to think of it, don’t kiss anyone. Kissing is for the French.
9. Do not go eating white sausage after noon. If you are eating a white sausage after noon, then you will lose all your hair. And you will probably also have bad sex, you bald person.
10. When you are drinking from a whole stein do not be drinking your drink down to the last warm and spit-filled drop like an old Swede. This is silly and disgusting. Leave the bottom of your bier on the table. There is more bier.
11. Do not arrive to the Oktoberfestmeadow sober. You will be horrified at what you see. You must always drink a nice half-liter of bier on the way, preferably on a train.
12. Always be tipping your server. Schlepping all of those grand liter biers has made them very strong and angry and dangerous.
13. Yes, of course you can get a little hen’dl to help you fill out your dirndl. But always be remembering: The bier is the food. It is called liquid bread for a reason!
14. When you are drunk you may get angry. This is completely normal! But when angry, do not tell a person that they are sow-dumb or say that someone has shit inside their head. It is more polite to ask them a question, such as “Are you fucking sow-stupid, or what?” or “Did someone shit inside your head?”
15. Always say hello. If someone looks at you a little bit, say hello. If they sit down two tables away, also say hello. If they left to go to the bathroom and then they come back, say “Hallo again!”
16. All the single ladies bind their dirndls on the left. Married ladies bind their dirndls on the right. I do so remember the one time I got it the wrong way, and it was so embarrassing!
17. Do not set anything on fire, please. That is for Easter time.

Oaks Park fake Oktoberfest runs Friday-Sunday, September 22-24 at Oaks Park, 7805 SE Oaks Park Way, oaksoktoberfest.com. Actual German Oktoberfests rules may not apply, because Americans are always drinking wrong. Admission to Oktoberfest is $4-$6 when it should always be free, and it is only three days, which is hardly enough time to drink.

Stammtisch fake Oktoberfest is Friday-Sunday, Sept. 15-17, at Stammtisch, 401 NE 28th Ave. It is free like all Oktoberfests should be, but is only a laughable three days long of drinking and only 4 of their 10 "Oktoberfest" biers are from München. The others are from ridiculous Baviarian Kleinstädte like Bamberg and Andechs and Freising whose Oktoberfests don't matter. And there is a smoky bier from Stuttgart in Schwaben. So ridiculous!

Mt. Angel fake Oktoberfest runs Thursday-Sunday Sept. 14-17 in the tiny Baviarian-looking town of Mount Angel, where some people might actually speak German sometimes and/or make sausage. But with the wonderful German lager they also serve a strange kind of bier called "pale ale" with so many hops, and everyone knows that after only four days you barely have enough bier in your system to be drunk, and a festival pass costs $30 when it should always be free.

Prost fake Oktoberfest is Friday-Sunday, Sept. 29-31 at Prost!, 4237 N Mississippi Ave, which is a ridiculous and confusing name for the bar because it's what we say all the time at bars. The Oktoberfest there is almost the same as the Oktoberfest at Stammtisch, because they are copy-Katzen.

Zoiglhaus fake Oktoberfest is Saturday, 7. Oktober at Zoiglhaus, 5716 SE 92nd Ave, for a silly one day only, but like real Germans they will have puppet shows for the childrens and yodeling for everyones, and no horrible admission charge. 2-10 pm.