The Radler Is the Unsung Hero of Oktoberfest

The mayor tapped the first keg of beer on Saturday, Sept. 19, marking the start of Oktoberfest in Munich. The festival lasts 16 days, and the six licensed breweries anticipate pouring over 6 million liters of lager. Much of that will be cut with soda.

A mixture of beer and lemon soda goes by the name of “radler,” and it’s offered everywhere beer is sold at the fair. The official count of beers served is tallied at the end of the fest, but radlers aren’t kept apart from other drinks. It’s no national pride for the drink, but it’s a standard at the German festival.

What a Radler Is

The word “radler” translates directly to “cyclist” or “cyclist’s liter.” The story traces back to 1922, when a Bavarian innkeeper named Franz Xaver Kugler served a mix of local beer and lemon-flavored soft drink to a group of cyclists who stopped for a pint before continuing their journey. Either Kugler was running low on beer, or he worried about their safety on the second half of the ride. He called the mixture a “radler.”

Kugler gets credit for coining the term, though he was not the first to mix beer with a soft drink. British pubkeepers had already been combining beer and lemonade or ginger ale together and naming the result “shandy”, a practice that dates back at least 75 years before him. The drink even made an appearance in print, with Charles Dickens referencing shandy as an acceptable beverage for an honest man on a hot day in his periodical “All the Year Round”, published in 1860.

Though other drinks compete with it, the radler remains a constant presence at German beer festivals, where it can be found throughout the year, from Starkbierzeit in March to Oktoberfest in early autumn.

Why Drink a Radler?

“I only drink radlers,” explains Sally Pilkington, a British expat who’s lived in Munich off and on since 2009 and has been to more than 10 Oktoberfests. “It’s not quite so alcoholic,” she adds, “if you’re going to spend four to five hours there and drink a full mass of beer, you’ll get quite drunk.”

At Oktoberfest, tables in the beer tents come with a time limit of three hours or more. People stand in long queues waiting to get into the tents, and once they make it in, they are expected to keep ordering food and drinks while they stay there. The beer is poured into a standard liter mug known as a “mass.”.

For those who prefer to slow down, a liter of non-alcoholic beer costs the same as regular beer. Radler stands as the sole low-ABV choice found within the tents. Fest beers usually carry an alcohol content of roughly 6 percent ABV, which puts a radler at about 3 percent ABV.

“It’s fine to be drunk [at Oktoberfest].”

Dominic Blum, an engineer who spent five years working at a biergarten in Hanau, Germany that hosts a popular Oktoberfest event for Frankfurters who can’t make it down to Munich, says the attitude is relaxed. “It’s not the best, but it’s normal. People misbehave and it’s expected. There’s always security around, and that’s why the glass mugs are so thick,” Blum adds.

The security isn’t meant to seem menacing, but to let people drink freely without worry. That’s also why radlers are always available as an option — so you don’t have to stop drinking.

The Format Evolves

The idea remains solid, yet the method keeps shifting. Many now combine their beer with sparkling water instead of lemon soda, a move that helps keep the body hydrated while letting more of the beer’s taste come through.

Drinking is on the decline, and lighter options are stepping into the spotlight. Every season brings a fresh variety of canned seltzer or a low-ABV ready-to-drink, yet the simple radler has remained a constant choice for anyone wanting to cut back on alcohol while still enjoying the social scene.

How to Make a Radler at Home

Here’s the recipe for the radler served at Oktoberfest:

• 12 ounces of Sprite
• 12 ounces of Bavarian lager (Paulaner, Hofbräu, and Spaten are the easiest to find in the U.S., but their festbier is rare — it has a stronger, maltier flavor than the standard helles style)

Pour both drinks into your biggest beer glass in equal measure.

A radler is a good drink, though there are far superior beer-soda cocktails available. One such mixture, made from wheat beer and lemonade, carries the name “Russenmass,”. Another, produced by blending lager and cola, goes by the label “Diesel.” Here’s the writer’s take on the current best version of the genre.

• 8 ounces of “Festbier” from a local craft brewery, or any helles lager
• 4 ounces of San Pellegrino sparkling citrus soda (any citrus flavor works! The citrus Spindrift seltzers also go well with helles lager)

Pour the ingredients together.

The Drink’s Legacy

Beer diluted with a soft drink has a long history, and the radler endures as a cultural artifact — proof that generations of drinkers have mixed the two together. Oktoberfest is one of the few places where owning up to that is not a problem.

Anyone planning a trip to Munich this autumn should consider ordering a radler. It’s a choice you’ll be glad you made.

Source material: “The Radler Is the Unsung Hero of Oktoberfest,” VinePair.

beer · festivals · Germany · Oktoberfest · radler