I'm at a point where I have to decide when to go to Munich, going during Ocktoberfest the hotels are either booked or very expensive or go before or after and save on hotels.

I'm curious if there is some kind of year round festivities that give you the flavor of the actual event?

The summer months are nice. They have several beer gardens in the Englischer Garten section of Munich.

Not a festivity, but the Hofbräuhaus might be an idea. The main difference to the Oktoberfest is really the sheer mass of people all deciding to have a good time at the same time and place.

You can also go to a lot of other festivities in other cities in Germany. The Oktoberfest is the biggest, but you have many big beer and wine fests in Germany from spring to autumn. HereŽs a list of the biggest, but any city and village have some of their own, too. The wikipedia article is in German but if one of the cities strikes your fance, youŽll quite certainly find an English web-page for the event.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksfe...hen_Volksfeste

Thanks Hans !

I think we've decided to go over in Sept. and still we'll have a feeling we won't be missing out on the big beer parties later in the month.

Try this site: http://www.whatsonwhen.com/sisp/inde...;loc_id=131044
You don't have to stay in Munich to enjoy Oktoberfest. We have stayed in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and in Pfaffenhofen and taken the train in. The walk from the U-Bahn to the fest is short. Also many of the towns around Bavaria have local fests. We did a fest in Pfaffenhofen the week before Oktoberfest.
Karlsruhe Beer Fair