NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas — Wurstfest held its opening ceremony on Friday night, kicking off New Braunfels’ yearly ten-day salute to sausage, beer and all things Germany.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 62nd annual Wurstfest. Are you ready?" Wurstfest director Jason Hurta said to the crowd gathered inside the Wursthalle.
It was a warm welcome to Wurstfest; a celebration of all things Germany and Texas through beer, carnival rides and of course sausage.
"Kind of like, on St Patrick's, everyone wants to be Irish. During Wurstfest, everybody wants to be German," said New Braunfels resident Brian Mitchell.
New Braunfels Smokehouse General Manager Josh Klein said he makes about 20,000 of their wurst-kabobs for the festival.
"We're one of the original sausage contestants from back in the day" Klein said.
Founded in 1961, this is the sixty-second Wurstfest.
"Looks like George Clooney, but that's me," Robert Johnson said, showing off one of the specially made Wurstfest pins with his face on them.
Johnson is the Grosse Opa for Wurstfest 2023. It's an appointed position in charge of, as he puts it, "making sure everybody has a good time."
"Which, obviously is the easiest job in the world because everybody's having a great time," he said.
But that doesn't grant him access to Wurstfest's most valuable knowledge. For instance: he can’t say how the sausage is made.
“But I have a wallet,” he said. “And I know where to go to buy it from experts who have been making sausage since the Germans came over in 1845."
Sausage-making secrets aside, he says the real value of Wurstfest is what the non-profits who operate the stands can bring in.
"They make several million dollars this week. And it really makes their life easier to do what our community needs the rest of the year,” Johnson said.
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