Alpine Village in Torrance ran an Oktoberfest from 1967 until the site closed in 2023, and its absence reshaped the whole category in Los Angeles. The events that inherited the crowd are mostly in Orange County or further out, which means the default answer to where to go for Oktoberfest in this city now involves thirty-five miles of freeway and a conversation about who is driving.
The best version of a night out is usually the one you can get home from. Tell Karpo where you are starting from and get what is on near you tonight, without a freeway in the middle of it.
There is a considerably simpler option on North La Brea.
Fridays and Saturdays, mid-September to the end of October
Wirtshaus is a German beer hall that runs Oktoberfest on Friday and Saturday nights across the season, from the third week of September through the end of October. Not every night, which is the detail to plan around — a Wednesday visit gets you the restaurant, which is good, but not the accordion.
On the Oktoberfest nights there is live music, decoration, food specials and stein-holding competitions, which is the traditional test of holding a full litre at arm's length for as long as possible and is much harder than it looks from a seated position. Reservations are recommended for these nights and the recommendation is real; a beer hall with a finite number of long tables fills in a way a restaurant with two-tops does not.
Thirty-five German beers, which is the actual argument
The list runs to more than thirty-five German beers, and that number is doing something specific. Most Oktoberfest events in this country pour one Märzen and a lager and call it done, so the beer is the least interesting part of an evening built around beer.
A list this size means you can actually work through the styles that the festival is nominally about — a proper Märzen against a Festbier, a Hefeweizen next to a Dunkel, a Kölsch when you have had enough weight. If you have only ever encountered German beer as a large mug of something amber at an outdoor event, this is where the category becomes interesting rather than seasonal.
The food is the standard Bavarian repertoire done properly — pretzels, sausages, schnitzel, Black Forest cake — and it exists to keep you upright, which after a litre of Festbier is a real service rather than a garnish.
- Oktoberfest runs Friday and Saturday nights from the third week of September to the end of October
- More than 35 German beers on the list year-round
- Live music, accordion and stein-holding competitions on Oktoberfest nights
- Reservations recommended for Friday and Saturday during the season
- 345 North La Brea Avenue; open from 11am Friday to Sunday and from 4pm Monday to Thursday
It is worth being clear about what this is not. A beer hall on a commercial street in the middle of a city cannot give you the thing Alpine Village had, which was scale — a whole site, a market, a bakery, a car park full of people in costume, and the particular atmosphere of an event that takes over its own village. Nothing in Los Angeles County currently replaces that, and pretending otherwise does nobody any favours. What this offers instead is the drinking part, done more seriously, twenty minutes from home.
The hours matter if you are not coming for the festival
Outside the Oktoberfest nights this is still one of the better beer halls in the city, and the schedule is worth knowing. Monday to Wednesday it opens at four and runs to half past ten, Thursday to eleven, Friday and Saturday from eleven in the morning to half past eleven at night, and Sunday from eleven to half past ten.
The Friday and Saturday eleven o'clock opening is the underused one. A beer hall at midday, before the evening crowd, is a different and quieter room, and the same thirty-five beers are on the same list. Sunday brunch runs here too, which is a German version of the format and a good deal stranger and better than the standard Los Angeles interpretation.
Why the location does the heavy lifting
North La Brea sits between Hollywood and the Miracle Mile, which puts it within a short ride of most of central Los Angeles rather than at the end of a freeway. That is the entire practical case for choosing this over the larger events: nobody has to be the designated driver for a two-hour round trip, and the evening can end whenever it ends.
The surrounding blocks are useful too. This stretch of La Brea has a dense run of restaurants and shops, the Petersen Automotive Museum and LACMA are ten minutes south on Wilshire, and the Grove is a short distance east if somebody in the group wants a plan that is not drinking. A late afternoon on Wilshire followed by a beer hall at seven is a well-shaped Saturday that requires exactly one short journey.
Parking on La Brea is the usual Los Angeles negotiation and the usual advice applies with more force than normal here: this is an evening built around one-litre servings, so take a rideshare and let the car problem be somebody else's.
One tactical note for the Oktoberfest nights themselves: go with four or more if you can. The long tables are the format, and a pair gets seated at the end of one next to a group of eight, which is fine but is not the experience the room is built around. A group large enough to hold its own end of a table changes the evening completely, and it is also the only sensible way to work through a thirty-five-beer list without anybody having to make a decision they regret at the second stein.
Practical notes
Wirtshaus, 345 North La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles. Oktoberfest runs on Friday and Saturday nights from the third week of September through the end of October, with live music, accordion players, stein-holding competitions, decoration and food specials; reservations are recommended on those nights. The beer list runs to more than thirty-five German beers year-round, alongside pretzels, sausages, schnitzel and Black Forest cake. Regular hours are 4pm to 10.30pm Monday to Wednesday, to 11pm Thursday, 11am to 11.30pm Friday and Saturday, and 11am to 10.30pm Sunday, when brunch is served. LACMA and the Petersen are ten minutes away on Wilshire.
Tags: #LosAngeles #LaBrea #Oktoberfest #BeerHall #BarsAndNightsOut #GermanFood #LABars #Wirtshaus #Pretzels #LAEats #Bavarian #LARestaurants #ThingsToDoLA #FallEvents
Please drink responsibly. Must be of legal drinking age.
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Ask Karpo first
Want to know which Oktoberfest events near you are on which nights, which need a booking, and which are within a short ride of home? Ask Karpo what is running around you this weekend and how late it goes.
