Octoberfest & Padanian beer

From Wikipedia's Octoberfest webpage:

"Oktoberfest is a 16 day festival held each year in Munich, Germany, running from late September to early October. It is one of the most famous events in Germany and the world's largest fair, with some six million people attending every year, and is an important part of Bavarian culture. Other cities across the world also hold Oktoberfest celebrations, modeled after the Munich event."

A few Padanian beers:

Forst Beer - South Tyrolean (originally Austrian-German)

Birra Moretti - A beer well-known in the United States. From Udine (Friuli-Venezia Giulia).

Birra Peroni - Another beer well-known in the United States. From Vigevano (Lombardy).

Birra Pedavena - Occasionally seen in the United States. From Milan, and is a very good beer!

The San Francisco is known for having warm Octobers, and so October always stuck me as an unusual time of the year in that it's warm weather just prior to winter. It's dramatic enough that we can have a very warm late October, and then it's simply "cold" in another two weeks. I always thought that there should be some type of greater celebration at the first of November, since there is a certain awe to the start of winter, with Christmas, Winter Festivals, and New Years, and the American tradition of late December and January football all upcoming. There's a certain warm feeling in the cold season. Perhaps it's somehow in our collective genetic memory, of family or clans huddling around the fire during frozen winter evenings for hundreds of generations. Remember, Venice is farther north than Minnesota. Maybe we could have some type of "Novemberfest" to go along with Halloween, to celebrate "Samhain," which our ancestors partook in for thousands of years.

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10-6-09 Addition: Also, anonymous has informed us the following, "You forget to list the best Padan Beer, THERESIANER Brewery 1766 from Trieste. It won the German DGL Medal in 2006." See theresianer.com. This beer is from the Treviso province.

10-24-09 Addition: Halloween is, in fact, the Christianized form of the old Celtic festival of Samhain. For example, the tradition of the "jack-o'-lantern goes back many centuries.