Oktoberfest – Chasing Phantoms

Out of Bounds Biergarten, Folsom, CA

Last night I attended an Oktoberfest party thrown by friends Vic and Peg. They had some awesome, giant pretzels that seemed perfect for today’s review:

*What? Doesn’t everyone where Lederhosen to Oktoberfest?*

But to my surprise, the pretzels were plastic, inflatable props. Turns out they were for a ring-toss game that involved toilet plungers. I am not making this up.

So let me instead offer a review of a real pretzel I had earlier this summer. I was at Out of Bounds Biergarten with my brother-in-law Scott S, who truly understands and appreciates this pretzel project.

Out of Bounds used to be a local brewery, but now it’s a taproom, serving pub food and other breweries’ beers. They have something like 25 taps going, so there’s bound to be a beer for everyone. It’s got a nice outdoor seating area (the eponymous Biergarten) and an attractive, rustic indoor space. There was a good, friendly crowd filling the indoor space but only a few people in the Biergarten. We opted for the latter, as pretzel reviewing requires a setting free of distractions.

I quickly got to work and ordered the Giant Soft Pretzel. This thing really is “giant”–in fact, it’s easily as big as the plastic one at Vic and Peg’s Oktoberfest. Out of Bounds also get points for hanging the pretzel on one of those fancy metal stands. This thing is a work of art.

More important even than presentation, this pretzel was positively delicious. It has what our server called a “thin crisp” consistency outside, which gives a slight crack when you bite into it. The inside of the pretzel is soft and chewy but not doughy. There’s a reasonable amount of salt (but it could have stood an extra shake or two from the saltshaker).

Accompanying the pretzel is what the menu calls a beer cheese “sauce,” that, brilliantly, includes chunks of real bacon. I could have eaten a bowl of the sauce with a spoon. But instead I just scooped up dollops of it with my pretzel. The pairing of the toasty, savory pretzel and the rich, robust sauce really worked; both the pretzel and the beer cheese sauce complemented each other in a beautiful display of symbiotic cooperation. Oh, they also gave us a container of honey mustard, but why waste your time?

Even though it was a huge pretzel, I was left wanting more when it was all gone. But that’s probably because Scott ate half of it.

I feel compelled to award this pretzel the full five stars. But I’ll also make another visit before the month is out, just to ensure I’m not falling victim to the Mariann’s Phenomenon.

PRETZEL TRIVIA

For today’s pretzel trivia, we are pleased to share a contribution from loyal reader Peter D. Taking us up on our plea for pretzel-related art, Peter shared a Renaissance-era Dutch painting by Pieter Bruegel. It’s called “The Fight Between Carnival and Lent,” and it contains over 200 figures that depict the push-and-pull between the excesses of Carnival and the self-restraint of Lent. It’s essentially a 16th-century Where’s Waldo scene, since Peter promised there are pretzels hidden within the scene.

I draw your attention to the red cart at the bottom of the painting. Upon it is seated a figure that personifies Lent, and there, at her feet, are two of those weird Flemish pretzels I was complaining about yesterday. Check it out:

Before closing, let me redirect you attention to the photo of the full painting. Note the Lent is about to collide with a fat man seated on a beer barrel. This guy personifies Carnival. Am I wrong to consider this a piscine confrontation between the herrings on Lent’s oar-like peel and Carnival’s prodigious cod-piece?

Harris Family Farm, Pollock Pines, CA

When I was but a lad, my brother and I spent many hours making “Creepy Crawlers.” These were rubbery insects that kids would create by pouring “Plastigoop” into molds and cooking them on what amounts to a kid-scale hot plate that reached 400 degrees Fahrenheit. What could go wrong? The contraption was marketed by Mattel in the 1960s–an era when, evidently, consumer product safety wasn’t a thing.

I remember that the Plastigoop was strangely tasty . It wasn’t edible, of course, but somehow the combination of chemicals and carcinogens appealed to my 8-year-old palate, and so I snuck tastes of it whenever I was making Creepy Crawlers. A few years later I would do the same thing with “Vampire Blood,” which was marketed during the Halloween season. Now, put a pin in that while we discuss today’s pretzel. I promise we’ll come back to Plastigoop.

So, I recently found myself at the annual Oktoberfest celebration in my (current) hometown of Placerville. Promotional materials emphasize, and I quote, “the popular Dachshund Dash, a Bavarian costume contest, a giant zucchini contest, and men’s and ladies’ stein-holding competitions.”

*Not really.

As tempting as giant zucchinis naturally are, I was looking for a pretzel. This turned out to be a surprisingly difficult task, given I was at a friggin’ Oktoberfest. The realty office on Main Street was handing out these pretzels necklaces, but I was looking for Bavarian soft pretzels, dammit!

And then, manifested before mine eyes, I spotted my quarry. It lay on a vendor’s table alongside jars of jam and was sealed in a plastic bag, but I was assured it was fresh-baked. It was being offered by a place called Harris Family Farm, in nearby Pollock Pines (pop: 7,100), which sits on the original Pony Express Trail.

Anyway, the Harris folks were game for a special Oktoberfest offering, and so they were selling these pretzels. Twelve bucks seemed a little steep for a bagged, take-out pretzel, but it comes with a plastic container of beer cheese, and in any event you have to expect to pay more at a street fair like this where the vendors first need to cover the cost of getting the table and a permit and maybe a little local graft.

So I took my pretzel (“the ribbon is so you can wear it around your neck!” explained the young lady in a Dirndl who sold it to me) to a decorative wine barrel that served as a table, and got to work.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I feel obliged to classify this as this as the worst Bavarian pretzel I’ve experienced. My main complaint is that it was just too bready. It had the consistency of an Olive Garden breadstick. Based on my extensive experience of making pretzels once, I suspect that the Harris Family Farm pretzel is simply baked, eschewing the crucial step of boiling in baking soda (or lye). This would also explain the lack of gloss and the washed-out color. Now, to be fair, the salt distribution was spot-on, and the bread (qua bread) was tasty enough. It just wasn’t a pretzel.

But now let’s talk about the beer cheese. Or, as the young lady from Harris Family Farm called it, “cheese.” As every schoolchild knows, beer cheese is a magical substance made from a tangy cheese (usually sharp cheddar) and beer. The result is a wondrous dipping sauce that nicely compliments the malty, yeasty, chewy pretzel. Clearly this is not what accompanied my pretzel.

*“I know beer cheese. Beer cheese is a friend of mine. Senator, this is not beer cheese.”*

The stuff I received looked more like Velveeta than anything else. I dipped a hunk of my so-called pretzel in it and took a taste. Plastigoop. Seriously. This tasted exactly like orangish plastigoop (or at least my memory of it). It had a similar consistency as well.

Friends, I think we can all agree that half the point of enjoying a Bavarian pretzel is coating each bite in some warm, tangy, creamy beer cheese. As the old saying goes, “A pretzel without beer cheese is like a horse without rear knees.”

So I’m going to have to rate this pretzel experience as one star. That one star was earned strictly by the appearance of the pretzel, with its festive blue lanyard, good size, and optimal salt distribution. But its lack of pretzel taste and lack of authentic beer cheese prevent it from getting any further stars.

Let’s hope tomorrow is better!

PRETZEL TRIVIA

The average American consumes about two pounds of pretzels each year. Clearly I’m carrying the water for several non-pretzel-eating Americans…

Tag: Oktoberfest

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