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STAR-BULLETIN / 2001 Dancers snake through the Ala Moana Hotel ballroom during Oktoberfest.

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Fill ’er up!

Celebrate Oktoberfest with beer,
brats, chicken dancing and lots
of oompah-pah

Willows Hops & Grinds

This is not specifically billed as an Oktoberfest celebration, yet with its emphasis on German and German-style beers, plus German food -- well, what else are you supposed to think?

The drinking runs 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, accompanied by an all-you-can-eat pupu buffet.

Sample the German breweries Beck's, Erdinger, Franziskaner, Lowenbrau, G. Schneider & Sohn, St. Pauli Girl and Spaten. German-inspired beers include Samuel Adams' Oktoberfest and Gordon Biersch Marzen.

Chef Jay Matsukawa's menu includes German potato salad, pork and whole-grain mustard soup with spaetzle, bratwurst and sauerkraut, braised ham hocks and sauerbraten.

Tickets are $20 in advance, available at Willows, Liquor Collection, Wine Stop and Tamura's Kaimuki. Call 952-9200. At-the-door price is $25.

Chef's Table

Beer isn't the end of it at the Chef's Table -- the restaurant's annual Beer Stein Competition celebrates the vessel as well.

Each year, owners Andreas and Kathleen Knapp invite customers to enter a German stein -- customers vote for their favorite. More than 100 entries are typically displayed.

The Oktoberfest celebration runs Friday to Oct. 9 at the restaurant in Hawaii Kai Towne Center. German and Austrian specials include kassler (smoked pork loin), eisbein (ham hock) and the traditional sausage platter. Prices run $16 to $22 for complete meals.

As a matter of history: Steins originated in 14th-century Germany, where the law required covering beverage containers for sanitary reasons in those post-Black Plague times.

The Chef's Table is closed Mondays. Call 394-2433.

Ala Moana Hotel

A keg-tapping ceremony kicks off a six-day celebration, Oct. 4 to 9 in the hotel's ballroom.

Live oompah music, the chicken dance, cowbells and polka will form the backdrop for servings of bratwurst, sauerbraten, giant knackwurst, pig knuckles, sauerkraut and apple strudel.

The beer selection includes Spaten, St. Pauli Girl, Bitburger, Isenbeck and Löwenbräu, as well as a German Schnapps Bude.

Hours are 6 to 11 p.m. Oct. 4 to 6; 6 p.m. to midnight Oct. 7 and 8; 5 to 11 p.m. Oct. 9. Admission is $5; $8 on Friday and Saturday. Scrip will be sold for food and drink. Call 955-4811.

Merchant Street

The Friends of the Cancer Research Center of Hawai'i have given their annual Mauka-Makai fund-raiser an Oktoberfest theme, 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. Oct. 8 at Murphy's Bar & Grill.

The celebration includes a buffet of German foods, amid Bavarian and German music, silent and live auctions (including artwork, jewelry, restaurant gift certificates and vacation getaways).

Tickets start at $200, with corporate tables available. Proceeds will fund the research center's efforts to improve the prevention and treatment of cancer.

Call 626-6755 or e-mail maukamakai@brightlightmarketing.com.

Beerfest

The Great Aloha Tower Beerfest (formerly the Great Diamond Head Beerfest), takes on a name and location change when it moves to Aloha Tower from the Waikiki Shell, 5 to 9 p.m. Oct. 7.

Taste more than 80 beers, ales, stouts and porters from an international selection of breweries, as well as Hawaii's microbreweries and brewpubs. Styles will include stouts, ales, lagers, bocks, pilsners, Honey Beer, porters, winter and Oktoberfest seasonal varieties.

To cushion the effects of all that alcohol, food will be for sold for $4 to $8 per plate.

Tickets are $25 in advance; $30 at the door. Buy them at Gordon Biersch at Aloha Tower, call 550-8457 or visit the Web site, www.honoluluboxoffice.com.

Hilton Hawaiian

A "Tropics Biergarten" will be created in Hilton Hawaiian Village's Tropics Showroom, 7:30 p.m. to midnight Oct. 7 and 8.

Franz Schauer's oompah band, the Tyroleans, will fly in from Germany for the party, which will include the traditional chicken dance, polka, sing-alongs and yodeling.

Chef Daniel LeGarde's menu will include pork or veal bratwurst, steamed kielbasa and smoked kasseler pork loin ($16 to $18). Dessert will be apple strudel, zuger kirsch torte and Black Forest cheesecake.

And the booze? Beck's Oktoberfest, Lowenbrau Lager and Erdinger Hefe Oktoberfest beers, Louis Guntrum wine and Berentzen Apfel Korn (apple schnapps) liqueur.

Admission is $10. Call 947-7875. Dinner package is $33.