Paulaner's traveling beer truck

Can’t make it to Munich? Turns out there are plenty of other spots to celebrate beer’s biggest season.

• At Philly’s Memphis Taproom for THIRSTOBERFEST! (Oct. 27), where nearly 30 craft brews will pair perfectly with chef Jesse Kimball’s special Oktoberfest hotdogs. The beer list already includes Founders Breakfast Stout, Smuttynose Pumpkin and Yards Cape of Good Hope.
• Vegas-style at The Venetian’s gastropub, Public House. Through September, the restaurant’s serving 200 beers (including three casks) and a prixe fixe beer-pairing menu (beginning Sept. 22). Drinkers who drink their way through the 50-beer Oktoberfest Pub Club mission score a T-shirt and $50 gift card.
  

  Thirstoberfest

• Outside Paulaner Brewery’s traveling Oktoberfest beer truck, which is traveling the country through October to bring a bit of Bavaria (and a full-fledged biergarten!) wherever it stops.
• In southern Maine at Sebago Brewing’s first-ever Sebago Octoberfest (Sept. 22). The brewery will unleash its Octoberfest Lager …and fest-goers get a 34-ounce stein! Brats braised in Runabout Red Ale will soak up the suds.
• Putting away a deep-dish at any Old Chicago eatery during the restaurant’s Oktoberfest Mini Tour (Sept. 12-30), when some of the 110 taps are taken over by German brews.
• Grilling out at Washington, D.C.’s Bar Dupont, where the chefs are hitting the patio to cook up German sausages on weekends (Sept. 22-30) to go with the Oktoberfest drafts in four sizes.
• Overlooking the Pacific at Cali’s Half Moon Bay Brewing, where the Oktoberfest menu (Sept. 12-Oct. 7) is full of German goodies: think sauerbraten, wienerschnitzel and potato pancakes with fresh applesauce.
• Parked at the 152-year-old McGillin’s Olde Ale House in Philly as the bartenders serve up a slew of Oktoberfest beers (watch for offerings from Flying Fish and Sly Fox) alongside German lunch and dinner specials like Oktoberfest lager-steamed mussels over noodles and kasebrotchen. The celebration continues through Oct. 6, when McGillin’s will turn Drury Street into a stein-and-karaoke-filled beer garden for the Midtown Village Fall Festival.
• Sampling a little bit of everything at Lottie’s in Chicago. Oktoberfest beer flights (through Oct. 31) are $7, and when you find something you like, you can splurge on a 32-ounce stein of it to go with your soft pretzel or brat plate.
• On Pier 48 at the San Francisco Waterfront for the 13th annual Oktoberfest by the Bay (Sept. 28-30). Music from the 21-piece Chico Bavarian Band and others set the mood for a German smorgasbord and Spaten brews.
• At New York’s 508 Gastrobrewery while its seasonal Oktoberfest Marzen is on tap, or Pilsener Haus in Jersey; there, a slew of German taps accompany chef Thomas Ferlesch’s special Austro-Hungarian menu of dishes like cod filet schnitzel and apple strudel.