Oktoberfest Cocktails: What to Pour When Everyone Is Sick of Beer

Oktoberfest runs from the third weekend of September into the first weekend of October. Six liters of Märzen in and somebody at the table always wants something else.

That is the gap this list fills. Nine drinks, all built around beer or served next to it, none of them requiring a cocktail station.

Start with the Radler

Beer and lemon-lime soda. Half and half. That is the whole recipe. See recipe

Bavaria, 1920s, invented for cyclists. Radler means cyclist. The point was beer you could drink at lunch and still ride home. Same logic covers a long afternoon.

The Shandy is the British one. Usually ginger ale. See recipe

Both want lager. Nothing hoppy. Citrus soda and IPA fight and neither wins.

When you want something bigger

Boilermaker. Whiskey and beer, taken together or in sequence. Older than most of the drinks anyone reading this has heard of, and still the most efficient way to change the direction of an evening. See recipe

The German equivalent is a Herrengedeck — beer with a schnapps alongside. Same idea, better name.

Black Velvet. Stout and champagne, layered. Stout on the bottom, champagne floated on top over a spoon. Looks absurd, tastes far better than it should, and it is the drink to make when somebody brought sparkling wine to a beer party. See recipe

The savory end

Michelada. Beer, lime, salt, chili powder, Tabasco, Worcestershire. Mexican rather than Bavarian, and by a wide margin the best thing to hand somebody who has been drinking lager since noon. See recipe

Salt and acid reset a palate that sugar cannot touch. This is why it works.

Red Eye. Beer, vodka, tomato juice. Cruder than a Michelada and considerably more direct. See recipe

Beer and Clamato. Two ingredients. Enormously popular across Canada and northern Mexico, faintly baffling everywhere else. Try it before you judge it. See recipe

Two more worth the shelf space

Beergarita. Corona, tequila, triple sec, lime. A margarita stretched out with lager, which sounds like sacrilege and drinks like a very long afternoon. See recipe

Beerbon Sour. Beer, bourbon, lemonade. The bourbon gives it a spine the Radler does not have, and the lemonade keeps it drinkable. See recipe

Getting the beer right

Märzen is the real Oktoberfest beer. Amber, malty, about 6 percent, brewed in March and lagered until autumn. Good drinking beer. Mediocre mixing beer. The malt sweetness doubles up with anything sweet you add to it.

Mix with a clean pale lager instead. Pilsner, helles, whatever is cheap. Here the beer is structure and dilution. Paying for character you are about to bury is a waste.

Two rules. Serve it genuinely cold. Warm beer cocktails are unforgivable. And pour the beer last, every time. Beer first means foam. Foam means you made half a drink.

If the party runs later into the season, our pumpkin beer and cider cocktails and the broader easy beer cocktails roundup pick up where this one stops. And for the shot glasses on the same table, fall shots covers the apple-and-cinnamon end.

Frequently asked questions

What do they actually drink at Oktoberfest?

Märzen, an amber malty lager around 6 percent, served in one-liter steins. Cocktails are not traditional at the Munich festival — the drinks in this list are for parties everywhere else.

What is a Radler?

Beer mixed roughly half and half with lemon-lime soda. It was invented in Bavaria in the 1920s and named for cyclists, the idea being a beer light enough to drink at midday.

What beer works best in beer cocktails?

A clean pale lager. The beer provides structure and dilution rather than flavor, so hoppy IPAs and heavily malted Märzens both fight the other ingredients.

What is the difference between a Radler and a Shandy?

Very little. Radler is the German version, usually with lemon soda; Shandy is the British one, more often with ginger ale or lemonade. The proportions are the same.

How do you keep beer cocktails from foaming over?

Pour the beer in last, down the side of a tilted glass, and make sure everything is properly cold. Adding beer first guarantees foam.

Six of these need one bottle you probably do not own. Cocktail Builder sorts that out before you shop.

Last modified on August 30, 2026