Voted USA Today’s best Oktoberfest in America for the second straight year, Tulsa Oktoberfest opens to the public Thursday for its 46th year — and the taps are flowing.
The city’s annual celebration of Bavarian culture has drawn admiration from across the country for decades, featuring overflowing steins, the chicken dance and the dachshund dash. Then, in the late 2000s, Tulsa’s craft beer scene stamped its own flavor on the festival.
Marshall Brewing Company opened in 2008 and took over one tap at Oktoberfest the next year. That one tap turned to three in 2010, but keeping up with demand was tricky. With equipment and support from a regional wholesale drink distributor, Marshall Brewing Company exploded in popularity at Oktoberfest 2011.
“LDF [Companies] supplied all the equipment, the main power and everything to make it run,” Wes Alexander, the brewery’s longest-tenured staff member, said. “We worked a deal to take over half of that tent and it was just crazy. Just an unbelievable response.”
As Marshall Brewing Company did not have enough kegs to keep up with the night’s demand, Alexander says he and Eric Marshall, the brewery’s founder and brewmaster, would run empty kegs back to the brewery, clean and refill them before driving back to River West Festival Park.
“It would have taken close to 300 kegs, but we just didn’t have them,” Alexander said.
Beginning in 2015, local breweries like American Solera, Cabin Boys Brewery and Dead Armadillo ushered into Oktoberfest alongside the German mainstays. But Alexander credits Tulsa’s local pride for paving the way.
“I think there was a spirit in the community — that is what makes Oktoberfest itself — that said, we want our own local beer,” Alexander said.
That spirit, Alexander says, draws back to the oil boom.
“A lot of the early founders around here had this pride about trying to build something that was unique,” Alexander said. “We started punching above our weight in terms of having opera and high-cultured events, but I think [Oktoberfest] is just residual of that idea. This is our thing. We put a stamp on it.”
Marshall received an international brewing diploma while studying abroad in Germany. Alexander says making traditional German-style beers is “a point of pride” for Marshall Brewing Company, but participation from the local craft breweries — and volunteers clad in lederhosen — are what makes Tulsa’s Oktoberfest special.
“The German beers that are available at Tulsa Oktoberfest are delicious and benchmarks and amazing in their own right,” Alexander said. “But if you were to go to an Oktoberfest in Cincinnati or one in Fredericksburg, or anywhere else, you would expect all of those beers to be relatively the same. Local craft beer at Tulsa Oktoberfest just provides an additional unique point about this place.”
The event runs through Sunday. For Tulsa Oktoberfest’s 2025 online guide, click here.
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